Pyractomena Borealis
by Katsu
Summary: This is the sequel to Acherontia Atropos. Six months after the end of Atropos, the supernatural once again inserts itself roughly into the lives of the pilots, this time in the form of the Master of Tokyo. Edit completed 8705
1. Chapter 1

Pyractomena Borealis

Once upon a time, there was this guy named Duo. He was perfectly normal except for one teeny tiny little thing, and that was the fact that rotting corpses had a tendency to haul themselves out of their graves and follow him around.

Good beginning. Yeah, right. Kind of the "Sleeping Necromancer" feeling.

I don't think so, but since I've said that much, I might as well keep going, huh?

But other than the entire necromancy thing, he was a perfectly average fifteen year old who just so happened to spend his free time off from school blowing shit up and slicing mobile suits in half with a thermal scythe. Well, that and lusting after his male roommate's body. And, well...er...blowing the heads off of vampires with a few well-placed rounds from a .40 Browning Hi-Power III.

Other than THOSE few further details, he really was normal. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die.

On second thought...uh...

Damnit.

I glared accusingly at the piece of paper sitting on my desk. It just lay there, still almost pristine white with a few smudges on it where I'd given up and erased what I'd written.

Several months ago, when I'd gotten out of the hospital after my first tussle with vampires, I had been forced to go to a few sessions of psychotherapy, because my physical therapist was convinced that my injuries...hell, ALL of our injuries, weren't the result of an animal attack like we all claimed, and that we'd been assaulted. Well, she was right, but I couldn't very well tell her that, could I? So I hemmed and hawed and went to whole three frigging sessions of therapy just to make her happy. It actually wasn't too bad. Better than having my arm broken again, or dealing with an extremely cranky physical therapist, at least. And it was only three sessions.

Anyways...the psychotherapist had suggested that I try to write down all of my thoughts, just so I could get myself organized and back in balance. A diary kind of thing. At that point, I'd had bigger things on my mind, so I hadn't bothered.

But now, half a year later, I needed some help getting on balance. Something was bothering me, and I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was getting some really bad vibes.

Cold, electric type vibes.

I sighed and glared at the piece of paper some more. It was mocking me with my inability to even get started, I was sure. I could almost hear it laughing. It sounded something like Heero, actually. Man, maybe I really did need psychotherapy after all. Paranoid delusions, me?

Finally, I simply wrote one word down. It said "Vampires."

I had a bad feeling that six months ago had only been the beginning. Something was going to happen, and it was going to happen soon.

I scribbled out the word so hard that the tip broke off of my lead pencil with a loud snap.

So much for Duo the normal teenager.

It had been a relatively good day so far. I hadn't killed anyone yet.

Emphasis on the 'yet.'

I was getting pretty damn close, though. I looked at Heero out of the corner of my eye. He had on the normal cold, stolid, Perfect Soldier expression as the Queen of Hel--er--Relena hung on his arm and chattered in to his ear. I'd never understand how he managed it. Not killing her, I mean.

Unless he really did like her.

No, I couldn't believe that, no matter what. I clenched my hands into fists and directed my attention elsewhere. If I ignored the fact that Relena had attached herself to Heero's arm like a giant, mutated leech, it was a beautiful Saturday. The trees still had all their leaves, and the leaves were still a nice dark green, despite the fact that it was getting on toward autumn. The sky was a brilliant, beautiful blue without a cloud in sight.

Actually, it was pretty damn hot. I tugged at the collar of my shirt and then flapped the tails in an attempt to get a little air circulating under it so that maybe my sweat would dry. Damn me and my long sleeved shirts anyway. Well...to be more accurate, damn my body-shyness. I still couldn't handle wearing short sleeved things or tank tops or swim trunks without a long sleeved shirt to go over them. Normally, I'm a complete attention hound, but for some reason, I don't care for the kind of attention that involves people staring at my scars. I have a bunch. The biggest one is on my collar bone, but then I also have a fairly large band of puckered white tissue on my upper right arm, where bone splinters had come through when a vampire shattered my arm. Then, of course, there were the lovely, thin little scars on my wrists. So long sleeved shirts it was, no matter how melting the heat got.

Besides, the long sleeves gave me somewhere to stow a couple of knives. They were nice knives. We'd had ten of them made special for all of us to share with the highest silver content possible. Not pure silver, of course, because then they wouldn't hold an edge, but still, enough silver to make any kind of supernatural nasty uncomfortable.

Me, paranoid? Naw. I wasn't carrying my gun, was I?

I heard Relena let out a high pitched squeal as she spotted something that she thought was cool. I considered using the knives, though whether it would be on me, Heero, or Relena, I hadn't quite decided.

It was really my fault, though. That morning, I'd asked Heero if he wanted to go shopping...

"What?" He looked at me like I was speaking a different language.

"Shopping. You know. Buy stuff. Spend money. Check out what's available." I wiggled my eyebrows at him.

"I know what shopping is." he said.

"I wasn't sure," I said defensively, "considering your education in normal-  
people type stuff really sucks in some other areas."

Heero glared at me for a moment. I wasn't even fazed; I achieved immunity from his death glares a long time ago in self defense. When I didn't flinch, he let out a small, long suffering sigh. "Baka." was his only comment.

I grinned. "Great, let's get going." I grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room, and that was that. Really, I was completely surprised that he didn't resist, or hit me, or threaten to kill me. Instead, he'd just come along with a faintly bemused smirk on his face. I wasn't going to object, though. I didn't get to spend much quality time with Heero...well, at least it was quality time as far as I was concerned. Never mind the fact that he almost certainly didn't see it the same way.

Next thing I knew, we were out of the dorms and in the bright sunlight. I grinned and whipped out a pair of silver mirrored shades. I'd...borrowed...them from a store after I saw how good they looked on me. Hey, just because dead people tend to follow me around doesn't mean my coolness factor should suffer.

I glanced back at Heero from out of the corner of my eye. He was still looking bemused. It was a nice expression on him. As stealthily as I could, I slid my grip on his arm down until I was holding his hand.

Damn, sometimes I am just to subtle. If he noticed, he must not have minded, because he didn't say anything. I tightened my grip on his hand a little, and he squeezed my hand back, real gently. I grinned as we kept walking along, me in the lead and Heero trailing behind.

That's when disaster struck.

"HEERO!"

I stopped in my tracks, and Heero ran into my back. "Fuck." I said.

The girl screeched again. She was getting closer. "HEERO!"

"Why did you stop?" Heero hissed at me.

I quickly let go of his hand. "Because she's obviously already spotted us." I muttered. "And she's probably like a dog. She can smell fear, and her quarry running away will only excite her." I sighed. "Just be nice, okay? I don't feel like dealing with a pissed off girl."

"Hn." Heero snorted.

Then she was on us. Relena grabbed Heero's arm. "Heero!" she squealed. "I found you again!"

"We hadn't noticed, really." I muttered.

Relena glanced at me...well, to be more accurate, she glanced right THROUGH me, then turned her attention back to Heero. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"We were going shopping, Ojou-san." I said as soon as it became apparent that Heero wasn't going to answer.

"Really?" She smiled brightly. At Heero. "Can I come along?"

I sighed internally. "Yeah. Sure." I said. She didn't look like she was going to let go of Heero's arm no matter what the answer was. And there was always the possibility of losing her in the streets of downtown Tokyo.

We started walking again. Relena was chattering at Heero, who was being silent, as always. Of all the times he picked to actually listen to me and be nice, this had to be the one. I sighed again, this time out loud. Damn me and my belief in being nice to girls anyway...

I sighed and flapped my shirt again. If the annoyance didn't get me first, the heat would. I needed to cool down, badly. "Hey there, missy," I said, waggling my fingers at Relena.

She stopped chattering at Heero for a moment and looked at me. "Yes?"

"I'm frying, here." I said. "Mind if we head out toward the park? Get some ice cream or something?" /your treat.../ I added mentally.

"No, go right ahead." she said. I grabbed Heero's unoccupied arm and pulled him through the crowd. I have to admit, sometimes I feel sorry for Heero, the way he gets stuck between me and Relena with both of us pulling on his arms. Then again, considering that it's pretty much all his fault as far as I'm concerned, I can't feel too sympathetic.

It took a while to get through the crowded streets; it was Saturday, after all. We eventually made it to the park, though. It was pretty crowded there as well, all lovers holding hands (be still my jealous heart) and kids with their parents or chasing after each other. Still, it was pretty nice. There was unoccupied shade all over the place under trees and umbrellas, and the ground was nice and soft. I strongly considered taking my shoes off. The grass looked like it would be nice and cool to walk barefoot in.

For a minute, I entertained the rather funny mental image of me and Heero, walking barefoot in the park. As the years go by, I swear, I only get more masochistic.

I glanced back at Heero and Relena. Heero was still devoid of expression, but Relena looked pretty happy. As much as I hated to admit it, they both looked extremely cute together. Better than two boys, I supposed...

God, life just wasn't fair. It was enough to make me want to chew my fingernails off.

Those thoughts weren't getting me anywhere, and they were really ruining my day to boot, so I firmly shoved them aside. There was a hill up ahead with some vendors on it. One of them was selling sno cones, and another one had hot dogs. I could was pretty sure that the one next to the sno cone guy was selling ice cream. "Yo, your Peacecraft-ness, what kind of ice cream do you want?" I asked.

"Strawberry, please." she said.

I glanced at Heero and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged his free shoulder. As always, he didn't care. I smirked as I walked away. I'd make sure to get him the weirdest flavor. That would teach HIM. Me? Petty? Never.

While I was waiting for my ice cream, I watched Heero and Relena. She was walking along a path that took her away from where I was. Obvious tactic there. I sighed as I watched them move further away. Sometimes I just didn't get it. I was pretty sure that Heero didn't like Relena, not in the boy/girl, bump and grind, hormones kind of way.

But then again, what did I know about Heero, really?

I knew that if I was him, and I didn't like Relena, I wouldn't be letting her hang on my arm like that. Definitely not. Yet there he was, walking along with the Queen of the World hanging on his arm, and while he didn't look like he was having a lot of funny, he didn't look overly angry, either. He looked his normal amount of angry, really. Maybe he was bottling it all up inside if he was getting pissed. I had no idea how he would manage that, though...I mean, after a while, you get pissed off enough inside that you explode, right? I'd never seen him lose it, at least not like that.

Or maybe one...well...one and half brushes with death had mellowed him a bit. Right.

Shit. I sighed and took the ice cream from the vendor guy and started eating mine right away. Espresso ice cream...cold treat and caffeine fix all rolled into one. Yum! I had to walk pretty fast so that I could start catching up with them. "Oi! Heero!" I shouted. I saw Relena glance back at me, then say something to Heero. His shoulders stiffened for a minute, then relaxed. I couldn't help but wonder what she'd said.

Then the hot dog vendor's cart, which was only about seven meters away from me, exploded in a large ball of flame, which gave me other things to think about. 


	2. Chapter 2

Pyractomena Borealis Part II

Note: KnM had one too many Dr Peppers before writing this part.

Warnings: Spontaneous combustion, gratuitous use of the word "weenie."

---

The hot dog cart, which had been peacefully sitting not three meters away from me, exploded in a giant fireball.

My first reaction was completely automatic. I threw myself back from the explosion even as the heat of it washed over me, hit the ground, rolled, and scrambled away, staying as low as I could. I've been told before that it looks kind of...well...cockroachy, but hey, any soldier worth his salt knows to get away from an explosion as quickly as possible and to stay low to avoid shrapnel. Better Duo the giant cockroach than Duo the human pincushion that can't get through a metal detector even when naked. I was behind the ice cream cart in less time than it took to blink.

The nice vendor lady was just standing there, staring at the flames. I grabbed her and threw her to the ground, just in case. The moment she hit the ground, she started screaming. It was like a signal. Everyone else started to scream, too. Damn civilians. I mean, geeze, it was just a flipping hot dog cart, for god's sake. Never mind that hot dogs are normally not that combustive. At least it wasn't anything bigger.

Well, I guess it was kind of a compliment to us Gundam Pilots that the civilians were so untouched by war that something so mild would freak them out.

The ice cream girl was screaming even more loudly, and when I glanced over at her, she was staring at me, not the merrily burning remains of the hot dog cart. I had my knives out. Oh. I guess it was a good thing that I hadn't brought my gun. God only knows what she would have done then. Passed out or something, probably. As I shifted my grip on my knives and she screamed even more loudly, I really wished she would pass out. I didn't need a headache.

Something hit the bright white and red umbrella that was over head with a soft, hollow thump. I looked up, ignoring the screaming girl in favor of ascertaining if there was a new threat. Little bits of flaming hot dog were raining down around the general area of the explosion, causing yet more havoc among the civilians.

I'll admit it, my next reaction to the entire thing was a lot less than professional. In fact, it was down right juvenile. As I watched the flaming weenie bits falling majestically from the sky, I could only think of one word to describe the whole situation.

"COOL!"

Ok, I guess you would've had to have been there.

My arms were grabbed roughly and I was spun around. One of my knives flew out of my hand and skittered under the ice cream cart in a silver arc, but I kept a firm hold on the other one, and it was pressed against the grabber's throat even before my eyes had finished refocusing. I found myself looking into a pair of intense blue eyes. Heero.

I quickly pulled the knife back, and his eyes narrowed slightly, flicking downward to look at the silver blade for a moment. I looked down as well.

There was a faint red sheen on the edge of the blade, and blood was welling up on Heero's throat in a thin line.

My eyes widened and I dropped the knife. "Oh shit, man, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." I started babbling incoherently. I couldn't tell if he was angry or not, but I was damn upset. It was just a little nick, but I'd done it to Heero.

Heero gave me a firm shake that set my teeth rattling. "Stop apologizing," he said, "It's a good reaction. It'll keep you alive."

I shut up mid-word. He kept his iron grip on my arms, and I suddenly became aware of just how close he was. Heero was abruptly the focus of my world, the screaming girl and the crowd and the fire suddenly retreating until all that was left for me was him and the pressure of his hands on my arms. Blood was still welling slowly from the shallow cut I had made on his throat. It was fascinating. The cool power inside me, the thing that lets me wake the dead up, stirred sleepily in the place it normally hid in during the day, deep in my gut.

I reached forward, and Heero relaxed his grip on my arms enough to let me do so. His eyes were mirrors; I couldn't see what was going on in his head, but that was no change. I barely touched the line of blood on his neck with my fingertips, and his eyes widened at that, his breath suddenly catching in his throat. I quickly pulled my hand back. There was blood on the tips of my fingers, and for one freaky, irrational moment, I wanted to lick it off, then lean forward and lap the blood from his neck, because he was MINE, and press him back against the ground until--

"HEERO!" came a shrill cry.

I shook my head and quickly wiped my fingers off on my pants. Black's great for not showing blood stains. I felt utterly disgusted with myself. What the hell was that? I wasn't a freaking vampire or something, for god's sake. Heero wasn't...Heero wasn't...

Damnit. I pulled my arms out of Heero's grasp and sat back on my heels, still scrubbing my fingers on my pants as Relena appeared on the scene and latched firmly on to Heero's arm.

"Heero, are you ok? What was that?" she was babbling, and she was doing it even faster than me, which was a major achievement. But hey, you win some, you lose some. She'd never beat me where it counted. All I had to do was check down the front of my pants and keep telling myself that...

If only. Who the hell knew which way Heero was bent? If any. Maybe his idea of sex was binary fission or something.

I felt around under the cart until I found the knife I had dropped. That went into one of the wrist sheathes. The other knife was still laying on the grass with Heero's blood on it. I didn't really want to pick it up, but I did anyway. That got wiped off on my pants as well. I've lost count of the number of sheathes I've ruined by putting a dirty blade back in them. This was only a little blood, but all it took was a teeny bit to gum up the works and make it impossible to draw the knife.

"Heero! What happened to your neck?" Relena explained. "You're bleeding!" Hoo boy. There were people running around, having hysterics and afflicted with third degree weenie-burns, and she was acting like a tiny little cut was the end of the world. Never mind that I'd been acting like that too. THAT was a different matter entirely. Yeah.

"What happened?" There was a white paper napkin blowing along the ground, presumably an escapee from the mini inferno still going on just a few meters away. Relena grabbed the napkin and tried to blot at the cut on Heero's throat. Heero easily fended her off and shot me an unreadable glare. "Did HE do this?" Relena demanded, shooting me a glare as well, but hers was eminently readable. I know the fires of hell when I see them. Either that, or it was flames reflected from the weenie cart. Not sure which.

Damn, I was just stepping on everyone's toes...

Heero transferred his glare to Relena. "Go home." he said, effectively ignoring her question. Thank you, Heero. I didn't want to deal with a pissed off Relena.

"What? Why? I don't want to leave you when you're hurt!"

Needed a reason...I glanced at Heero. He wasn't talking, apparently, so I jumped in. "Too dangerous, Relena." I inserted myself deftly between her and Heero, intercepting the napkin she was still attempting to attack Heero's neck with. Sometimes I am just too smooth. "Leave the exploding," somehow I managed to keep a straight face, "hot dog carts to the professionals. We wouldn't want you to get hurt or anything like that. Right, Heero?"

Heero blinked. Good enough for me.

"What?" Relena stopped. "Was that aimed at me?"

Not a chance in hell. Even if you ignored the fact that she was nowhere near it when it exploded, explosions are simply too unreliable to be an assassination tool when they're that small. Not that I was going to tell her that. I smiled and nodded. "You're the most visible person there. It must have been for you." I've found out from long time experience that flattery is one of the most effective means of manipulation around.

That gave her pause. "One of the war mongers?" she said incredulously. "You think someone's trying to kill me?"

I wanted to say 'there's a line forming right now' but I didn't. See? I'm getting better at controlling my mouth. Instead, I nodded. "Anyone that doesn't want peace is going to be after you. It's not safe for you to be here."

"Go home," Heero said again.

Relena bit her lip and looked over my shoulder at Heero. "But..."

"This is no place for you. Go home," Heero said.

Relena nodded reluctantly. I love how she listens to Heero's one word, rude responses, and acts like I don't exist...and I'm a hell of a lot nicer than Heero. As much as I like him, he's a taciturn little SOB at the best of times. "I understand, you're worried about me." Relena smiled.

Yeah. Real worried about her. If she stuck around much longer, I might just give in to temptation and kill her.

"I'll come and find you again! I'm sorry that our afternoon was ruined. I know you must be upset." she said, standing up.

"Go. Now." I made a shooing motion. "You know how Heero hates long goodbyes." Oooh, I was going to pay for that one. I could feel his glare boring into my back.

"Goodbye, Heero..." she slowly backed away, then turned reluctantly and kept walking. Thank God.

As soon as Relena was out of earshot, Heero grabbed my arms again and jerked me around to face him. We were almost nose to nose. He glared at me. Oh shit. "Sorry, I was just trying to get her to go away, please don't kill me...er...what?"

Heero slowly raised one of his eyebrows, his look, if anything, increasing in its crustiness. "Leave the exploding hot dog carts," he said, his slightly nasal voice incredulous, or at least as incredulous as it got for him, "to the professionals?"

I couldn't help myself. I started laughing. "Sorry, man, it was the best I could come up with at the time, you know?"

Heero actually smiled...well...smirked as I kept laughing. I wished that he'd do that more often. That little smirk of his is pretty damn sexy.

Abruptly, the smirk disappeared and his hands tightened, his fingers digging into my upper arms. I stopped laughing and did my best not to wince. "Are you alright?" he asked.

I nodded, grinning from ear to ear. "Perfectly fine. It takes a little more than a couple exploding wieners to hurt me. I mean come on, man!"

His eyes narrowed. "Did you...?"

"Of course not!" I said indignantly. "Give me SOME credit! If I wanted to cause havoc, I could do a lot better job than this!"

"Sorry." he muttered.

"Heero?"

"Yes?"

"I can't feel my arms."

He got the hint and let go. I sat back quickly on my heels and rubbed my upper arms, trying to restore a little blood flow. I had a feeling that I was going to have bruises there tomorrow. "Geeze, what's gotten in to you?" I muttered. It just wasn't like Heero to grab me like that. It was kind of disconcerting, when I thought about it. Then again, maybe it meant that he was worried. That was a nice prospect.

I glanced over the ice cream cart for a moment. The fire was still going. A quick check around revealed that the vendor lady from this cart had split a while back...funny, I hadn't noticed. It had probably been when I was dealing with Relena, so understandable. I popped up to my feet and opened the little freezer doors on the top of the ice cream cart. "Ne, Heero, what do you want? Looks like there's plenty of everything left."

He was standing next to me almost instantly, peering down into the depths of the little freezer. Cool air washed out of it, and it felt good. My shirt was starting to stick to my body, I was so sweaty. The situation wasn't helped, of course, by the fire.

"What are you doing?" Heero asked.

"Getting some ice cream. What does it look like?" I found the metal ice cream server and helped myself to a double scoop of espresso and chocolate on a waffle cone. Yum. "I lost my other cone when that," I gestured toward the flaming wreck, "exploded."

"Hn." Heero commented. "Do they have any cookie dough?"

"Lemme check. Yep." I plopped a couple scoops of ice cream in a cone and handed it to him. We stood there for a minute and licked at our ice cream, watching the little wreck flame away. It was kind of pretty, in a weird way. But then again, considering that we're Gundam Pilots, nothing is too weird. This was like nothing. Later, I knew, I'd go over the entire scene mentally, and try to figure out what the hell happened, and let my suspicious imagination have free reign with the entire scenario. But for now, I was content to just stand in the melting heat next to Heero and eat my ice cream and watch someone's livelihood go merrily up in flames. Simple pleasures are the best kind.

I could hear sirens in the distance. Sounded like the fire trucks were finally coming. "Man, took them long enough, didn't it."

Heero checked his watch. "Yes."

I nibbled on my waffle cone. "What's this world coming to?" I asked everyone in general.

"HEY! What the hell do you kids think you're doing?" A voice demanded loudly. As one, Heero and I turned. A very angry, very large man was storming toward us. I had a feeling that he was the guy that owned the ice cream cart.

"Sounds like they're playing our waltz, huh?"

"Yes."

We took off running, ice cream cones still in hand.

Later that night, after I'd taken a nice long, COOL shower to wash all the sweat off of my body, I came out of the bathroom to discover that the room had been turned inside out. Heero was sitting on the floor with every gun in our arsenal arrayed on the floor around him. He was cleaning and loading all of them.

I didn't have to ask why. I already knew. As nonchalantly as we'd played it this afternoon, exploding things weren't standard fare for us when we were off the job. So I straightened the mattress back on my bed and sat down, toweling my hair off. I had to carefully cross my legs at the ankles to keep from flashing; the towel I had wrapped around my waist was way too short, and I didn't think Heero would really care if I flashed--though God only knows that I hoped that he would care, in the voyeuristic sense--a guy's still got to have a few manners. I watched him fiddle with the guns for a couple minutes before I finally got tired of the silence. "Well?" I said.

"Yes?"

"It wasn't an explosive device. The way it went up wasn't right."

"I've come to the same conclusion."

"So...it could have been something natural." I offered, combing my fingers through my wet, clinging hair to get the worst knots out.

"It could have been. The internal gas tank in the cart might have been leaking."

"But you don't think that's what it was."

"No." Heero set the gun he was working on to the side for a moment and glanced back at me. He raised his eyebrow slightly. My turn to say something again.

"You don't think it was natural, at all."

"Yes."

"I don't think it was either." I crossed my arms across my still damp chest. "I don't know what it was, but I don't like it. I have a bad feeling about this entire thing."

"So do I."

"I already mentioned it to Quatre and Wufei and Trowa. They're all on alert." I sighed. "So much for relative normalcy."

The only answer I got was the crisp metallic sound of a clip shooting home. 


	3. Chapter 3

Pyractomena Borealis Part III

Annoyingly enough, nothing happened for the next several days. I probably should have been happy about that, but I wasn't. I could feel something hanging over us like an axe dangling from a little piece of shredding twine, and I knew it was just waiting to happen. The fact that nothing did just made me tenser and tenser. I can only wait so long for the other shoe to drop before I start getting a little bit jumpy about things.

I'm not normally all that high-strung, but the tension was making things worse than normal for me. I started getting minor stress headaches, which made me grumpy, and I was wire tight and had a tendency to react violently if I was startled. To make things even harder one me, we were in an actual lull as missions went. Oz was keeping to itself, strangely enough; there were no new movements or installations to check out. It would have bothered me a lot if I hadn't been spending most of my time worrying about that damn exploding hot dog cart. I actually started hoping that Oz would try to pull something. I kept getting the strange feeling that Deathscythe was getting restless; he'd been cooped up under a camo-net for over a week in a nearby forest.

I stared up at the water-marked ceiling of my dorm room. This one was quite a bit bigger than the last, which was great. The old one had been so small that Heero and I had been practically sharing a bed, which did not do me a bit of good when it came to the libido-controlling department. 'A little lust is a healthy thing' my ass. Whoever said that had never had to deal with a potentially homicidal roommate...

Or nightmares that wouldn't let them go.

Nightmares. I hate fucking nightmares. For a long time, they bothered me, but then I got used to them, and they didn't any more. My adventures six months ago had provided my nightmares with all sorts of wonderful, new material, though, so I was back to being bothered. Very bothered. As in sickened and half terrified.

Which was why I was staring at the water marked ceiling of the dorm room at--I glanced at the clock--three in the morning. Class first thing in the morning tomorrow was going to suck. It didn't help that my first class was technical writing, a subject that I was hard pressed to make myself care about. Creative writing is fun. Philosophy is fun. Technical writing is boring and useless as far as I'm concerned. The day a Gundam Pilot needs to be able to write a business briefing will be a sad day indeed. Why bother learning how to write politely worded memos? Blow shit up. It's easier, and a lot more persuasive.

I glared at the ceiling a little harder. I really needed to just fall asleep. Sleep...sleep...sleep...

Ok, the self-hypnosis thing was just not working.

I sighed quietly and sat up so I could look over at Heero. He was dead to the world, sleeping the sleep of the wicked...well, not exactly. I knew that if I so much as made a suspicious noise...or a suspicious lack of noise, he'd be up in an instant and I'd have the barrel of a gun stuffed up my nose. It had happened before. A hair-trigger partner is not exactly conducive to hanging loose and relaxing.

I played the events of the afternoon over in my mind; me taking his hand before Relena found us, him grabbing my arms after the explosion...I wasn't sure what to make of it all. Sometimes, he acted like he really did care, that maybe...but then again, a lot of the time, he acted like I was just another annoyance in his life, about in Relena's class. I wasn't sure what to do. It was driving me bonkers.

I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to go over to him and sit on the edge of his bed and watch him sleep, or maybe even be really daring and kiss him, even if it would get me a gun up the snoot. I'd lost him once already, and I'd come close to losing him again only six months ago...and now that Relena had shown up, I wasn't sure what to think. And it was about to start up again. I was scared.

What the hell had I been thinking today, when I grabbed his hand? The hand in question clenched into a fist, seemingly of its own volition. What did I think was going to happen? Me and Heero walk down the street, hand in hand like a couple of lovebirds? No, no way. How could I do something like that? I didn't have the right to touch him or have thoughts like that about him, or anyone else for that matter. Never.

With another soft sigh, I stood, making just enough noise that Heero wouldn't think I was sneaking around, and padded to the room's bathroom. I needed a shower. Maybe is it was warm, it would relax me enough that I could get some sleep.

"--Duo? Duo!"

It finally registered. Someone was saying my name. Loudly, now. "Eh?" I muttered quietly, raising my head with a concerted effort of will.

"Are you alright?" Wufei asked from across the table. He actually had his eyes open, a highly unusual thing for him in the morning. There were also three empty teacups by his elbow, which pretty much explained that.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"You were about to stick your nose in your coffee cup." Wufei remarked blandly.

I blinked stupidly and looked down at the offending cup, then quickly set it on the table when I noticed how close it was to spilling. "Oh." The all night insomnia parties were really starting to get to me. "I just had a little trouble sleeping last night."

Wufei looked unimpressed by the explanation. Without looking, he reached to the side and grabbed Quatre's shoulder, saving him from hitting his plate of runny eggs and toast face first. Quatre started and tiredly opened his eyes, smiling sheepishly. Weird. Quatre's normally the annoyingly cheerful morning person of our merry little group.

Huh. So I wasn't the only one having problems sleeping. Maybe Quatre was feeling the tension, too. It was nice to think that I wasn't the only one. If Heero or Wufei or Trowa were bothered by it, they weren't giving any sign. Heero and Trowa were disgustingly aware and awake no matter what unholy hour they got up at, as always, and Wufei was as doing about as well as normal, considering he wasn't a morning person by any stretch of the imagination. "You okay, Quatre?" I asked.

"Yeah...just having a hard time sleeping." he said.

I managed to grin slyly past my utter fatigue. "Oh, is Trowa keeping you up?" Man, I am such a putz in the morning.

THAT woke Quatre up. He gave me a glare that was almost worthy of Heero. "Jerk." he muttered, then smiled sweetly at me. "I don't know, is Heero keeping you up?"

Touche. I snorted. "I'll thank you to leave my personal life out of this." /I wish./

Wufei was eyeing both of us rather strangely. He finally shook his head. "Morons."

I didn't give him the satisfaction of a comeback. Well, actually, the clever comment I was going to make got swallowed up by me yawning loudly.

Quatre sighed and poked at a bit of egg on his plate with a rather burnt piece of toast. I hastily looked away, back down at my coffee. Food. Ugh. I don't know how he does it. "So why are you having a hard time sleeping?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Not sure. I just have an odd feeling...and I've been having strange dreams." he glanced up at me, eyebrow upraised.

"Nightmares. Same ol' same ol'." I shrugged a lot more nonchalantly than I felt.

"You know you're always welcome." he said.

I shrugged again. Truth to be told, I knew I was welcome, but I hated intruding on Quatre and Trowa. Sure, nothing was going on between them right now, but you never knew...I wanted to give Quatre as much time alone with Trowa as possible. I mean, hell, if I can't get any, I at least want one of my friends to. It's the next best thing...because then you can get them to tell you all the gory details. Who me, a voyeur? Nah. "It's nothing that I can't deal with. Really, what's giving me more trouble is the fact that I'm sharing a room with Heero. Again." I sighed. I had a feeling that Heero cooked the room assignments, which was a nice thought, but I had no way of proving it, and if I asked, all I got was a glare and the usual 'idiot' or 'I'll kill you'  
"I figure I just need a little distraction before bed. Maybe I'll start taking walks or something again."

Quatre nodded. "Just do us a favor and take a partner."

"I'm a big boy." I grimaced. "I can dress myself and everything."

It was Wufei's turn to laugh. "Trouble follows you like a bad smell. I'm tired of having to jump in to save you."

I flipped him off, which only made him laugh harder. Some people, I swear... "Fine." I growled. "I'll take back up." I thought for a minute. "I'm not taking Heero. He wouldn't go for it to start with."

"You never know." Quatre somehow managed to fit half a slice of toast in his mouth. I'll never figure out how he does it. "He might want to go." He leered--god's honest truth, Quatre LEERED at me. "You never know, he might just be waiting for the opportunity..."

I stared at Quatre wide eyed for a moment while he let the thought trail off, still leering at me. It was about on par with the time I watched a rabbit attack and attempt to hump a small dog as far as weirdness factor went. The effect was finally destroyed when he inhaled the rest of the toast. Wufei was choking on his tea. I glared at him. "I'll think about it." I said, then grinned. "I'll just make sure to bring you along."

THAT wiped the grin off of Quatre's face. I smirked into my coffee cup. The day was looking up.

The school day was completely uneventful, which was both good and bad. Good, because that meant that all was as it should be with the world. Bad, because I fell asleep at my various desks several times. I'd never thought it was possible, considering how hard those wooden chairs at the desks are. Guess I'm just talented.

After class was done, I went right back to my dorm room, took off my jacket and the stupid strangling tie, and just flopped on my bed. I was at that stage where I was very tired, but not quite tired enough to take a nap. So instead, I felt around under my bed until I located a few dog-eared manga that I'd picked up...somewhere.

I stared at the black and white pictures in the manga I was holding, not really seeing them. I could hear a soft hissing in the background; Heero was taking a shower. Images of Heero, naked and wet danced in my head, and I growled quietly to myself and tried to concentrate on my manga. Damnit, I did not need this. My hormones live to make my life hell, I swear.

I could almost imagine getting up, slipping into the bathroom...and...and...

Crap.

I put the manga down for a minute and rubbed my eyes. Yeah, right. If I actually tried that, Heero would probably be wiping blood off of the tiles for the next couple of days. I firmly told my hormones to bugger off and picked the manga back up. It was a nice violent one, about some swordsman that was immortal or something--every time he got injured, weird worm thingies would close the wounds up. Trying to read the manga in the dim evening light was giving me a stress headache, but I didn't feel like getting up to turn on the light.

Heh. Maybe that was how Heero did it. I snorted. Naw, it would be too logical. This was Heero. If there was a good reason, it was going to be a hell of a lot weirder than simple magical worm thingies.

The hissing abruptly cut off. Heero was done with his shower then. I glared at the next panel of the manga, puzzling at the kanji. There was one I didn't recognize, and it was starting to piss me off. I really didn't feel like looking it up. Still, it was pretty clear what was going on; the main sword guy was cutting someone in half. That didn't take a whole lot of explanation.

A door opened, and the room immediately brightened as buttery light spilled out of the bathroom. It dimmed momentarily as Heero stepped out.

Some things are like car accidents; no matter how hard your brain is screaming "Don't look! Don't look!" you can't help it. Slowly, reluctantly, my gaze inched up, until I was peering over the top of my manga at Heero. He had one of my teeny tiny towels wrapped around his waist, and that was it. The light from the bathroom glittered across his skin; he was still damp, and water was dripping from his slicked back hair, running down his neck and shoulders in rivulets. He ignored me and walked toward his bed. The towel sure didn't cover a whole lot. I manfully fought off the urge to stand up, grab him, and lick at the water that was running down his nicely muscular chest.

Someone up there either loves me or hates me. I have a hard time deciding which, at times.

I followed him with my eyes as he walked past me. The rear view was almost as nice as the front view. He reached down to take the towel off...

Gah! What the hell was I thinking?

I hastily looked back down at the manga and flipped the page. I would not look. I would not look. I would not look.

Damnit. I wanted to!

My hormones took over and slowly, I looked up again...oh man, no...

He'd put his boxers one while I'd been struggling with my hormones. I was torn between being relieved and being upset. Relieved won out, and I let out a tiny sigh.

It wasn't the smart thing to do. Heero turned to look at me, pinning me on the spot with his eyes. I managed to look him in the eye defiantly. So my partner had caught me almost ogling him. I was not going to be the first to flinch. Heero raised an eyebrow, and I could feel my face getting hot. I was starting to blush. Of all the lousy...he couldn't possibly know what kind of dirty thoughts I'd been thinking, could he? God I hoped not. I didn't want him to know how much I'd fallen. Before he could say anything, not that I was really expecting him to, I shut the manga and stood quickly, grabbing the Browning and tucking it into the waistband of my pants. If I untucked my shirt, no one would be able to see it. "I'm going out for a walk." I said.

Heero raised his eyebrow a little more. "I'll go with you." he said.

Shit. I couldn't exactly tell him that I was going out to get away from him, could I? I grimaced internally. Damn him for picking this once to be interested in what I was doing. "Don't worry about it." I said hastily. "Quatre's already going with me."

His eyebrow cranked up a little higher. I managed to keep a hold of my grin through sheer will power. "I promised." I said, putting in one of my best nonchalant shrugs. No need to tell him WHAT exactly I had promised.

Heero watched me for a moment longer before he shrugged, then sat down at his desk in front of that damn laptop. "Stay alert." was all he said before he started powering the machine up and went back to ignoring me.

I sighed silently and watched his back for a moment, then headed out the door. I don't have a lot of self control at times, so I've learned that the best way to keep myself from doing something I'll regret later is simply remove the immediate temptation. It's a good idea. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and slouched toward Quatre and Trowa's room. Theirs was located in the floor above mine and Heero's, right across from Wufei's room.

When I knocked on their door, there was no answer. I waited a couple seconds, then knocked again. Still no answer. Wufei's door was open a crack, indicating that he was in and willing to be sociable, or as sociable as Wufei gets, so I pushed it open the rest of the way and stuck my head in.

Wufei was sitting on his bed, jacket off and tie undone, his head bent over a book that was sitting in his lap. As soon as the door opened, he put his finger on the page he'd been reading to keep his place and looked up. "What do you want, Duo?" he asked, raising his eyebrows a little.

For once, he didn't sound too annoyed. I grinned at him. "Have you seen Quatre?" I asked him.

"He convinced Trowa to go out with him. I think they're shopping for books."

"Damn." I said softly. I'd promised Quatre that I wouldn't go out by myself, but I REALLY had to get away from Heero. "Hey, Wufei..." I said.

He looked suspicious. Can't understand why. "What, Duo."

"I'm going to go take a walk..."

"And...?"

"And I promised Quatre that I wouldn't go by myself..." I grinned charmingly at Wufei.

"No." he said. "I'm reading."

"Alright." I shrugged. "I'll just go out by myself, since you're the last person I have to ask. I have no problem with that. The theater district is interesting enough that I don't need company." A very true statement, but I had promised Quatre, and Duo Maxwell is a lot of things, but a liar isn't one of them.

Wufei put his head in his hands. "Wait a minute...you're going to go and wander around the theater district by yourself?"

I grinned and nodded. I've hung around Wufei long enough to know exactly which buttons he has to push. The theater district was by no means a rough part of town. The crowd was just a little more...colorful. I liked it down there.

"Hold on." Wufei shut his book and grabbed his jacket, straightening his tie out. "I'd better go along, to keep you out of trouble." he growled.

I just smiled at him. Damn, I'm good.

The theater district was packed, strangely enough. As early as it was in the evening, there shouldn't have been too many people there--the really interesting folks don't crawl out from under their rocks until after midnight, normally. Still, it kept things entertaining, or so I told myself as I brushed past someone that was dressed almost entirely in feathers, and appeared to be a woman at first glance. The second glance was a different matter entirely. Women normally don't have stubble. Or at least none of the women I'VE met.

I took a few more steps before I noticed that something was missing, namely Wufei. I glanced back. He was starting at the women--er, man. I snorted and grabbed his arm, then started walking again. "Wufei, man, you have to learn, they can smell your fear."

Wufei glared at me and removed his arm from my grasp, none too gently. "Are you done walking around yet?" he muttered.

"Nope. Still haven't gotten all the frustrations out." I grinned. Really, I was thinking about heading back myself, but I'm just too contrary to let Wufei off the hook that easily. That was why we were down in the theater district anyway. I hadn't really felt like going down here, but once I told Wufei that it was where I was going, I didn't have a lot of choice.

It was full dark now, and the street was becoming more crowded. Neon stood up against the black sky, blood red and poison green screaming out the names of various theaters and dance halls. I knew from personal experience (hey, I'm a curious guy) that most of the dance halls were oriented towards the homosexual crowds. I'd found that out when I went into a couple of them just for the hell of it and gotten propositioned more times in five minutes than I'd had total since I hit puberty. It was actually impressive and flattering in a kind of disturbing way. The tamer theaters had drag queen acts. I didn't want to know about the less tame theaters.

We walked past a dark brick walled building with a huge swirl of bright blue neon that said "Theater of Mysteries" on it when my back, right between my shoulder blades, got that kind of itchy, uncomfortable feeling. Someone was watching me, and watching me very intensely. Casually, I reached around my back, like I was going to scratch an itch or something, and hitched up my untucked shirt just a little so that I had a more unobstructed reach toward my gun. What I really wanted to do was draw it, but that didn't seem like a terribly smart idea in a big crowd. "Wufei--"

--There was a flicker of movement ahead of us, then something grabbed me from behind and slammed me into the brick wall of the theater, very hard. I had time to pull my gun out of waistband before I hit the wall. It knocked my breath out, and black sparks danced in front of my eyes for a moment as I struggled to draw some oxygen into my complaining lungs. Something dark and very, very big was looming over me, gripping my shoulders almost tightly enough to leave indentations in my bones, holding me suspended several inches above the dirty concrete sidewalk, and there was an odd light near the bottom of my peripheral vision.

My cross was glowing. Oh shit.

I started to bring my gun to bear on whoever or whatever was in front of me. Almost negligently, it let go of one of my shoulders and grabbed my arm, slamming it firmly against the wall. The impact hurt, but I kept my grip on the gun and started struggling wildly. I might as well have been trying to move the theater with my bare hands for all the good it did me, so I started yelling since I didn't have anything better to do. My vision finally cleared, and I could see the person in front of me, tinted a sickly blue by the neon glow.

He looked like a hit man out of a classic gangster movie. That's all I could think of. He was big, his shoulders looked like they were wider than I was tall, he had a crew cut, a nasty expression on his face, and he was wearing a suit that stretched tightly over his many and way too big muscles. He grinned at me. He didn't have fangs.

Everyone was still walking along the street like nothing was happening. No sir, no teenagers getting assaulted here. No one even looked our way, even though I was yelling at the top of my lungs and I'm not exactly quiet.

I was in real trouble. Something was VERY wrong.

I heard Wufei growling off to the side and I looked over. I didn't have anything better to do, after all; Mr. Muscles wasn't budging. A much shorter, much skinnier man had Wufei pinned against the wall one handed, kind of like I was, if you ignored the fact that Wufei was being strangled and I wasn't. He had his hands firmly locked around the man's wrist. I think that's all there was saving him.

The man was shielding his eyes with the hand that he wasn't holding Wufei with. "Take the boy's cross off." he said.

Mr. Muscles let go of my wrist just long enough to grab my cross and yank on it hard, snapping the chain. He threw it away behind him. I was suddenly very glad that I'd decided to get a second cross and wear that instead of the one Father Maxwell had given me. It still wasn't a good thing that I'd just lost it, but at least that one didn't have sentimental value attached to it.

The cross sailed through the air and hit a woman in the head. She stopped and shook her head, then looked toward me. For a moment, I felt some hope. She squinted and stared for a moment, then shook her head and started walking again.

Fuck.

There was one good thing, though. Mr. Muscles didn't grab my gun hand as well as he had before. I still couldn't break free, but... I twisted my wrist in his grasp, and fired, hitting the vampire--he had to be one, he'd been affected by my cross--in the stomach. It wasn't a clean shot by any means; the bullet went in at an angle that wasn't even close to solid, but it expanded enough that it made a pretty big hole when it hit. Blood sprayed from the vampire, splattering all over Wufei and several passers by. One of the people, a woman, looked down at her freshly stained clothing and started screaming. Pedestrians all over the place stopped and started looking around. A very good sign.

The vampire shrieked and dropped Wufei the instant the bullet ripped through it. Wufei landed in a heap on the ground, then scrambled quickly to his feet. Mr. Muscles slammed my hand into the wall again, and this time, I did drop the gun, mainly because my hand went numb. "Wufei! Run for it!" I yelled.

Instead of following my good directions like any sane person, Wufei launched himself at my captor and hit him with a knife hand in the armpit. Mr. Muscles dropped me and swung at Wufei.

At that point, I ate concrete for a minute and didn't see much of anything. I could hear more people screaming. Maybe they'd recovered from whatever it was that had been done to them. I didn't have time to care. I scrambled along the ground until I found my gun. My hand closed over it and I rolled quickly to the side...but not quickly enough. Strong, clawing hands picked me up and threw me against the wall of the theater again. I hit head first.

The world went black. 


	4. Chapter 4

Pyractomena Borealis IV

The next thing I knew, I HURT. It felt as if a very vengeful, nasty Taiko drummer had taken up residence inside my head and was beating out rhythms on the inside of my skull with a set of those huge wooden drumsticks they always use. The only time that I could even remember that I'd felt worse was six months ago, after a vampire had tried to grind my head through the asphalt surface of a parking lot. Well, that, or the time that Quatre and I had managed to get a hold of two bottles of tequila...

I moved my head slightly, just as an experiment, and immediately wished I hadn't. No, this definitely beat out the tequila binge by a lot. I heard a thready little moan through the roaring of my own pulse in my ears, and I hoped that it was someone else. There was no way I could sound that pathetic. The surface underneath of my aching head shifted, sending a thrill of pain down my neck, and I heard the moan again. Yeah, it was definitely me. Damnit.

Cool fingertips touched my forehead, gently but firmly holding my skull together and keeping me immobile. I cautiously cracked an eye open. I couldn't see anything. Great. So I'd either hit the wall so hard that I was blinded, which was not a prospect I even wanted to consider, or I was in a pitch black room, which also wasn't a great possibility.

"Are you awake, Duo?" someone asked softly. Wufei.

"Nng." I stated intelligently. Yeah, that's me. Mr. Word Power. After a couple of false starts, I got my mouth to move the way I wanted it to. "Yeah," I whispered. Talking loudly would have made my skull fall apart, I was sure of it. "I'm awake, but I wish I wasn't."

"I'm not surprised." Wufei said.

I tried to remember what the heck had happened. It was a challenge. It hurt to think. I could remember hitting the concrete and scrabbling around, searching for my gun in the eye hurting pool of neon light...then my fingertips touched the cool metal of the gun...and...and...

Oh yeah, that was right. Something grabbed me and gave me a nice close up view of the blue lit brick wall of the Theater of Mysteries right before everything went black. Well, that explained everything. Shit. "Wu, what the hell happened?"

Wufei snorted. "After you got thrown into the wall, the monster threatened to kill you if I didn't cooperate. They were both very angry, and I think the only thing that kept them from fighting was the fact that I was there and watching them."

"Fighting about what?" I asked curiously. I would have thought the monsters were a unified front against us.

"The big one seemed to be of the opinion that throwing you against the wall was a bad idea." Wufei said.

"Gee, that makes two of us." I muttered. "I'm with complete agreement with the big guy on that one. Then what?"

"The big one picked you up and they brought us into one of the theaters and locked us in the basement. I've been waiting for you to wake up ever since. With no lights, I might add."

I let off a long-suffering sigh. "Jesus, Wu. I had them all distracted and I gave you the PERFECT opportunity to run for it, but no, you had to go all noble and white knight-ish and now look where we are."

"A man doesn't run away from a fight," Wufei said stiffly.

"A man also doesn't get his ass willingly locked in a dank, dark basement either, unless he's into really kinky stuff!" my exasperated voice hurt my own ears, so I left it at that. If I'd been feeling better, there was a LOT more that I could have said.

"If I'd run off, you would have been left helpless in their hands and we wouldn't have known where you were," Wufei pointed out.

Ok, I guessed I couldn't leave it at that. Aching head or no, there was no way that I was going to let him win this argument. "Yeah, but no one knows where you are, so instead of just one, two of us are lost--and no one has any idea at all where we could be!" I pointed out. Wufei muttered something under his breath, and the surface underneath my poor, aching head shifted once more. After I was feeling coherent enough to talk again, I cracked an eye cautiously open, even though it didn't change the view much. "Wu?"

"Yes?"

"Is my head in your lap?"

"Yes."

I had to stop and think about that for a moment. "So let me get this straight. We're in a cold, dark basement and I'm laying on the floor with my head in your lap."

"Yes."

I blinked. "Why?"

"Because it was either that or the floor, which is concrete, I might add," Wufei said. It sounded like it was his turn to be exasperated. After a moment, he spoke again, and his voice softened a little. "You were bleeding very badly when they threw us in here. I had a hell of a time getting it to stop."

"I'm sorry," I said. I'm never sure exactly what to say in situations like this. It seems strange to apologize for bleeding all over the place when it wasn't exactly your fault to begin with, but what else can you say? 'Oops?' I think not.

"You owe me a new pair of pants," Wufei said.

"Okay, I'm really sorry." Geeze. Some people.

Wufei snorted. "Moron."

"Thanks." I muttered, closing my eyes. There were interesting light sparkles dancing in my vision from my eyes attempting to find anything at all to see in the complete darkness. "So what's your assessment of the situation, Wu?"

"There's at least one vampire, which swings the odds against us, since we are now completely unarmed." Wufei said.

"Yeah...I remember...the skinny guy that got you. He couldn't look at my cross." I guessed I was going to have to buy another expendable cross now. If I got out alive, that was. "What about the other guy?"

"He's a completely unknown factor. He's obviously not a vampire, but..."

"...But he certainly can't be normal, considering he's hanging out with one." I finished. "Hold on a sec. Something's bothering me." Wufei stayed quiet, waiting for me to complete to thought. There was something about the big muscular guy that was trying to worm its way into the forefront of my mind. Despite the fact that thinking hurt, I forced myself to mentally run through the events of the last few minutes I could remember before things went blank. Being a terrorist is bad for the health, not to mention dirty and exhausting, but it does wonders for the memory. I quickly skimmed across the details of what had happened, discarding most as unimportant for the moment. There was something...I could almost see Mr. Muscles grinning at me again, and then I had it. "He's wrong." I said.

"In what way?" Wufei asked. I could almost feel him going completely still like he always does when he's listening with all his will and ready to jump on any bit of information you can throw at him and rip it to shreds. Sometimes, I swear he's a computer.

I could feel my eyebrows drawing together as I concentrated on the frantic memories. The top of my head felt like it was about to slide off, but I ignored it, or tried to. "Eyes," I finally said, "and teeth. They don't look right." Wufei stayed quiet, so I kept going. "It could just be the funky-ass blue lighting, but the guy had pointy teeth...and his eyes look wrong. Kind of like cat's eyes."

"I see," was all Wufei said. I could almost hear the little gears in his head turning at about mach two. "Anything else?"

I frowned. "He just felt wrong. He felt like he was larger than he was. Like he had waves of heat rolling off of him, if that makes any sense."

"Like he was out of focus and not quite the right shape for his body," Wufei suggested thoughtfully.

Bingo, he had it pinned. I knew there was a reason I kept him around. I grinned to myself and actually managed to keep quiet so that Wufei could think without me interrupting him. It was a bit of a strain, actually. Whether my eyes were open or closed, it was completely black. The only reason I actually knew that Wufei was there was because I could hear him breathing, and feel warmth radiating from his legs under my aching head. It felt really weird, but it was comforting in its own way. It kept me from thinking about how dark it was, because if I did that, I could almost feel the walls closing in until I was trapped like a rat with no where to go...

Damnit, I was not going to start thinking like that. I just had to stay calm and quiet and let Wufei cogitate, and this would hopefully all be over soon.

A loud clank echoed through the basement and light burst into the room. I yelped and shut my eyes as quickly as I could, shakily covering them with my hands for one valuable second so they could adjust. Ok, so it would be over a lot sooner than I had originally thought. Wufei grabbed my shoulders and pushed me into a sitting position, then dragged me to my feet, holding my arms tightly enough to leave bruises, which I wasn't going to complain about, considering that his hold on me was the only thing keeping me on my feet. I concentrated on holding my head steady and not throwing up. The bad guys already had us in a bad position. They didn't need any help from me.

My eyes adjusted to the sudden change in light levels fairly quickly, and I was soon able to make out the silhouettes of two people standing--well, lounging, more accurately--in the doorway. It took a lot of squinting, but I could tell that one of them was Mr. Muscles. Oh joy. The other one looked enough like him that they could have been brothers. They were both large, hairy, extremely ugly, and giving us huge toothy smirks with their weird, pointy teeth shining in the light. Great. With a lot more nonchalance than I felt, I grinned. "Hey, Wufei, look. It's the Doublemint twins."

That had the desired effect. The two knuckle dragging monsters stopped smiling at the same time.

"Nice coordination," I commented, ignoring the disapproval I could almost feel radiating from Wufei. The poor guy still hadn't gotten used to my mouthy tendencies. He thought that every serious confrontation had to be approached seriously and with...what was that word...decorum. Poor sucker didn't know what he was missing. Heckling is a sadly under appreciated art form. The day I cease being an artist in that particular field is the day I'll be pushing up daisies with vampires jigging on my grave.

Mr. Muscles took a deliberate step forward, then another and another, and I let my grin get bigger. He wasn't smiling any more. So much for 'laugh and the world laughs with you.' Shit. Oh well, if it was my time, at least I was going to go out smiling. I just stood there and watched him come toward me, waiting. There wasn't much else to do.

He stopped about a foot away from me and just stood for a minute. "You shouldn't make things any worse for yourself than they already are," he finally said slowly after a great deal of deliberation.

I got the distinct feeling that slowly was pretty much the only way he could talk. After a moment of sober reflection, I decided to keep my snide comments to myself. My head was still attached to my body and all of my limbs were still in their sockets, so pushing the nice shaved gorilla didn't seem like a great idea. So instead, I just kept on grinning. "Really? How could they get worse?"

He had to think about that for a moment. "The boss could be mad at you," he said.

The boss. Oh, perfect. "Okay," I said. Wufei seemed to be pretty content to let me do the talking, which was great. It's what I'm good at. "So now what?"

He smiled beatifically, revealing those nice pointy teeth of his again. I guess I was just making his day by cooperating. "You and your friend come with me'n my brother nice and we take you to see the boss."

They were brothers. Oh, even more perfect. I glanced at the other big muscular guy. He glared at me. He definitely did not look as warm and fuzzy as his brother, even if he did seem to be a good deal swifter in the mental department. "Come on, Tony. Let's go," he said. So Mr. Muscle's name was Tony. Oh, it was all just too perfect!

"Yeah, Angelo," Tony said. He peered at me. "Can you walk?" he asked.

Angelo. Oh gawd. I did my best not to laugh, and I was almost successful. "I think so," I said.

"I will be helping him," Wufei said, rather stiffly.

Tony glanced back at his brother with a confused look on his face. Angelo shrugged. "Can't let you. Boss said you were too dangerous together."

"Well, yeah, I suppose we're just too damn sexy for our own good." No one laughed. Angelo and Tony just looked at me funny. Wufei dug his fingers into my arms. Nobody understands my sense of humor.

After another dumbfounded glance back at his brother, Tony grabbed me away from Wufei a little rougher than my aching head really approved of and slung one of my arms over his shoulder. It was kind of like being supported by a freaking tank.

"You come here," Angelo said to Wufei. Wufei glanced at me, then walked up to Angelo. "No funny stuff, kid. I'm watching you."

"Yes," Wufei said. "No...funny stuff." He was either trying not to laugh or trying not to sound nauseous, I couldn't tell which.

Angelo and Wufei disappeared out of the doorway, and Tony started pretty much dragging me along. I tried to walk at first, but my legs didn't seem to be listening to my brain very well, which was going to make things really interesting when it came time to leg it. Things weren't helped by the fact that Tony was at least a foot taller than me, though. The arm around the shoulder bit was just too awkward, so I gave up and let him pretty much carry me along. The two of us went up a set of wooden steps and into another basement, it looked like. The walls were concrete and there were bare pipes crisscrossing the wooden beams overhead. The floor was carpeted, but the carpet was pretty threadbare; I was betting it was a worn out reject from a main room somewhere upstairs. There were black splotches all over it that could only have been old gum that was ground into the thinning threads.

After winding our way through a bunch of narrow passages, we stopped in front of a door that was missing most of its varnish. There was a little plaque over it that said "Storage Closet A: No Unauthorized Entry." Angelo didn't even hesitate, he just opened the door and went on in, hauling Wufei after him. Tony dragged me inside and shut the door behind us, and then we were in another world.

The room--it certainly wasn't a closet--was carpeted and padded so thickly that I felt like I was walking on a pillow. The carpet was stark, unadorned black. The walls of the room were covered with black and gold filigree wallpaper, and there were various impressionistic pictures of...er...naked women arrayed around the walls in even intervals. The only furniture was a huge wooden chest that seemed big enough to put someone in--wasn't THAT an unpleasant thought--and a delicate wooden desk that looked real out of place compared to the chest. The big attraction of the room, though, wasn't the furniture. It was the guy sitting behind the desk.

I had to admit it, I was impressed. He was certainly dressed to kill. I'd seen a costume like his, once, at a renaissance festival. He had on very tight black pants and a big white shirt with laces at the cuffs and the neck, and it looked pretty nice. His hair was a kind of weird, bright canary yellow, but I figured that would happen to anyone's hair if they hadn't seen the sun for a couple centuries, and this guy hadn't been up in the daylight for at least six, maybe more. I don't know how I knew, I just did. He felt that old in my head.

He smiled at Wufei and I, a nice close lipped smile that kept his teeth perfectly hidden, not that he was fooling anyone. "Mr. Maxwell," he said. "How kind of you to accept our invitation." 


	5. Chapter 5

Pyractomena Borealis Part V

"Mr. Maxwell, how kind of you to accept our invitation." the vampire said, smiling pleasantly.

Tony let go of me like I was suddenly red-hot. I wasn't expecting it and barely managed to save myself from falling over with an undignified little stumble that turned into an even bigger undignified stumble because the room must have drunk too much beer since it was tilted at a pretty strange angle. The only thing that saved me from even more embarrassment was Wufei catching me and holding me up like good ol' Tony had been doing. I gave myself a minute until my head quit trying to come apart at the seams before I finally looked up to take another good look at the situation. The vampire was still smiling politely at me, his expression betraying absolutely nothing. Tony and Angelo were now standing on either side of him in classic bodyguard poses. They were both trying to cross their arms, but their own muscles were getting in the way. Kind of sad. Angelo was openly smirking at me, his little pointy teeth hanging half out of his mouth. Well gee, it was nice to know that someone was having a good time. I glared at him and refused to be embarrassed; it's a fact of life that the only way someone can embarrass you is if you feel ashamed, and as Heero is fond of telling everyone, I have no shame.

"Nice invitation," I muttered at the vampire, now that I was composed enough to actually talk. He raised one of his bright yellow eyebrows at me. He wasn't used to sarcasm, I guess. I pointedly, if gently, ran my hand through my bangs, which were stiff with dried blood that flaked off onto my fingers, then raised my eyebrow right back at him just in case he hadn't gotten the hint. "Normally, people call or send a card."

The vampire twitched, or at least I think he did. The change in expression happened so quickly that I could have been imagining it. "I must apologize for that," he said. "I gave strict orders that you were not to be harmed, but it seems that my servant became a little over zealous."

"Just a little," I heard Wufei mutter.

The vampire continued on smoothly like he hadn't even heard Wu. "His insubordination will be dealt with, have no doubt on that. He is already most apologetic for his mistake. If you like, you may ask him yourself."

It seemed he was expecting an answer, so I gave him what he wanted. There didn't seem to be a need to piss him off. Playing along sounded like a good idea until I could figure out what the hell was going on. "Where is he?"

"Right behind you."

I automatically looked back, my free hand (the one that wasn't hanging onto Wufei's shoulders for dear life) reaching for the gun that I didn't have any more. There wasn't anything behind us, though, just the big chest. I glanced quickly back at the vampire. He hadn't moved at all, and he just kept smiling that same smile, which brought me back to the chest. The big - huge almost - wooden chest that had iron strapping on it and looked like it could withstand a fall off of the top of the Eiffel Tower. The chest that was definitely big enough to put a person in, if you broke some bones so they could bend appropriately to fit into it. It seemed really familiar.

I turned back to the vampire again. He was smiling more now, so that the tips of his fangs were peeping out, looking kind of like a little kid that was showing off his favorite toy. But what kind of toys would vampires have? I suddenly realized where I'd seen something like that chest before.

A while back, Heero and I had spent a couple weeks at a boarding school in England. The history class I was in had gone on a museum trip, and I'd gotten bored with what we were looking with and wandered off to check out some of the other parts of the museum. I'd ended up in the medieval section, right in the middle of a room full of torture devices. There'd been one, a big chest with iron strapping on it, that had spikes all on the inside of it, like it was a miniature, portable iron maiden. Oh shit.

The vampire must have seen my eyes get a little wider, because his smile broadened. "If you like," he said, "I can release my hold on him and allow him to scream. Or if you don't believe me, you may open the chest and look for yourself."

"Thank you for the offer," I said quickly, "but I'm okay. I believe you." I was pissed with the vampire that threw me against the wall, by grace of the fact that I'm not terribly fond of people that make me bleed, but I wasn't that pissed. I would never be that pissed. Yeah, if I had the chance, I'd shoot the vampire on the principle of the thing, but that was different. Dead was dead. It was clean. Not torture.

And suddenly, I was very impressed. All it took was a threatening piece of furniture and a relatively friendly question, and I was mentally chasing my own tail. Why bother with blood and ungraceful nastiness when you had your audience's imagination working for you? This new vampire was good. Very good. I'd thought that I'd had the score after I'd tangled with Kalin, but it was very obvious that he'd been small fry--very stupid, unsubtle small fry. I was playing with the big boys now.

"Alright," I said. "I give. I'm impressed. Now, who are you and what the hell do you want?"

Angelo started turning a nice shade of boiled lobster red and took a step forward, but he stopped the instant the vampire raised his hand. The vampire suddenly lost all expression like someone had just flipped the smile switch off. "Mr. Maxwell, I have been very, almost overly polite up until this point because I am interested in keeping relations open and friendly at this time. Do not expect my courtesy to extend into the future if you are rude to me. That would be a mistake on your part, and probably your last."

I shrugged non-commitally. Pissing the vampire off more didn't seem like a good idea, but at the same time, apologizing didn't seem too smart either. Something that I didn't quite understand was happening. The vampire was annoyed at me, yeah, but he and Angelo and Tony were watching me with an intensity that had nothing to do with anger. I had a funny feeling that I was in some kind of dominance contest and I was being tested. Failure didn't sound like a good option. I'd been avoiding looking the vampire in the eye up until now, mostly because I still wasn't totally sure about the immunity thing...looking the guy in the eye would probably at least put me on something close to equal footing. So I took a deep breath, braced myself, and looked him right in the eye.

They were just eyes. Thank you God. Nice eyes, yeah, a real sharp, bright blue, but there was no power in them that I could feel. It was all good.

If the vampire was surprised, he didn't show it. Instead, he just sat back after a moment, and looked away. I knew that he was trying to stare down Wufei now. Good luck to him. "My name," he said after another pause, "is Johannes. I was the Master of Berlin, but I have left my home city on the behest of those higher than me, to come here."

"That's nice," I said.

Johannes raised his eyebrows, but didn't comment. I decided not to push him too much further unless he gave me a good reason to. "Six months ago, a Master named Kalin was sent here," he said.

When he didn't continue, I nodded. It was obviously audience participation time.

"You killed him," Johannes said. It was a statement, not a question.

I didn't see any reason to deny it. "Yeah."

Johannes folded his hands neatly in front of him on the desk. His fingers were very slender and white, the skin perfect. "Kalin was a weak fool," he said. "No one cares that you killed him. I certainly don't. However, I have been sent here to complete the job that he so thoroughly botched."

I shrugged.

"Let's not beat around the bush, Mr. Maxwell. I want the Master of Tokyo."

I shrugged again. "That's nice," I said.

Johannes looked annoyed. "Don't be coy, Mr. Maxwell."

"You want to kill the Master of Tokyo. That's fine. That's great," I said, spreading my hands and letting a bit of my bewilderment show for effect. "What do you want me to do about it?"

Johannes leaned forward. "I want to know where he is."

I opened my mouth to say something, but Wufei beat me to the punch. "What makes you think that we know?" he said.

"It is well known that Kalin was sent here for. You killed him. It is a logical conclusion that you must be working for the Master of Tokyo."

"Woah, there, big guy," I said quickly, grabbing the conversation right back from Wufei. "I think your logic needs a little work."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. The thing is, I don't work for vampires." I smiled. "I kill them. So there's no way I could be associating with this Master of Tokyo guy, because if he's a vampire, it would be my obligation to..." I let my smile get bigger, "...cap his ass."

Johannes smiled politely. "You have a way with words, Mr. Maxwell."

I grinned at him. "Thanks, I try."

"It's a pity that I don't believe you."

"Yeah it is." I shrugged, "Because what I'm saying is true. I don't work for vampires."

Johannes stood--wait, stood wasn't the word for it--seemed to just flow out of his chair. It was too graceful to describe it any other way. "That is a pity as well then, Mr. Maxwell." He walked slowly toward Wufei and I. We stood our ground. Barely. I could feel tension singing through Wufei's muscles; he really wanted to get the hell out of there, but then again, so did I. There was no way for us to escape, though. He stopped in front of us, leaning in so close that his nose was almost touching mine, and his eyes were boring into me. I might be immune to their power, but the sheer force of personality behind them was pretty damn intimidating. "It would be a mistake not to work together on this, you see," he said very quietly. His breath smelled like peppermint, but there was the dull, earthy undertone of old blood lurking underneath the sweetness.

"Really," I said, as nonchalantly as possible considering the fact that there was a vampire literally in my face.

"The fact that the Master of Tokyo is a threat to both humans and vampires is immaterial at this time, Mr. Maxwell, though it is something that you should keep in mind. You have a larger threat facing you instead."

"Which is...?" I asked.

"Me," Johannes said, very pleasantly. "And you'll notice that while I am not as large of a threat as the Master of Tokyo, he is not here. I am."

Before I had a chance to say anything else, all the hair on my arms suddenly stood on end as a wave of cool, electric energy rushed over me. My eyes widened. My initial impression had told me that Johannes shouldn't have this much power. I had a sinking suspicion that I was wrong.

"How old am I, Mr. Maxwell?"

More energy crashed into me. I was surprised that my braid wasn't standing straight out from my body. "Shit..." I whispered.

"How old am I?" he asked again.

"You're eight hundred years old," I said, "Maybe older."

Johannes smiled; I could feel it. "When the printing press made its first bible1, I was there, Mr. Maxwell. I was the first to touch the pages."

"You must not have been a vampire, then," I said.

"In that, you are correct," he said, "I was still a good Christian man. I am no longer bound by that, however."

For just a moment, I thought that there was a flicker of sadness in Johannes' eyes before I managed to regain my mental feet. "What do you want?" I asked quietly.

"I already told you, Mr. Maxwell. I want the Master of Tokyo."

"I'd give him to you if I could, but I've never even met the guy. You should believe me," I said.

Johannes stepped back, and I could suddenly breathe a lot more easily. "If you do not know where he is now, you will, very soon." The vampire turned and walked back to his desk, where he sat down between Tony and Angelo again. "You have one week."

"What?" Wufei asked, very sharply. I was busy fighting off an attack of the heebie-jeebies, which was why he beat me to the punch.

"You have one week to provide me with the location of the Master of Tokyo, or I will kill you and you friends, as well as level the school that you are currently attending." Johannes smiled pleasantly, as if he were inviting me out for a game of bingo instead of threatening to kill me and a lot of other people.

I tried to play it cool, even though I was on the verge of a panic attack. This guy wasn't Kalin; I could tell that he wasn't stupid. I could also tell that he didn't believe in making idle threats. The enemy was back, and he was at least as smart as me and a hell of a lot older. We were screwed. "Don't you think that's kind of...overkill? I mean, threatening to kill off me and the guys is one thing, but going after civilians is considered to be very uncool these days."

"I think, Mr. Maxwell, that you are hardly one to preach about overkill."

Ouch. He had me there.

Johannes continued, "All in all, I prefer to think of it as ample motivation. I will complete the mission that I have been set here for. Failure is not an option for me in this matter, and thus, failure will not be an option for you."

Great. And now he was beginning to sound like Heero. I was starting to feel very worried. "Can we go now?" I asked. The street doesn't raise morons; I knew that I was outclassed and I needed to beat a strategic retreat until I had a chance to regroup.

"Yes, you may leave," Johannes said, leaning back in his chair. Wufei started backing us up toward the door; neither of us wanted to leave our backs vulnerable to the ghoul squad. "Oh, and Mr. Maxwell?"

We kept backing away as nonchalantly as possible. "Yeah?" I said.

"If you attempt to harm or destroy me, I will kill you and your friends, and I will level your school."

"That's nice." The walls suddenly felt like they were getting very close. Damnit, now was not the time for an attack of claustrophobia.

"Just so that we know where we stand." Wufei stopped; we'd reached the door. Johannes just continued to smile at us. "Angelo, please, show them the door."

Wufei was still attempting to open the door. For some weird reason, he seemed to be having a problem with it. Angelo started walking toward us, and I decided that I'd had enough intimidation for one day. "Did it ever occur to you, Johannes, that even though it's a bad idea for me to piss you off, it wouldn't be smart of you to piss me off? People that get on my case don't have a good survival record."

Johannes leaned forward. "Really. That's nice to know."

The coppery scent of fresh blood wafted by me. I knew where it was coming from...I knew it, but I didn't want to look. God, I didn't want to look.

I looked anyway.

There was blood seeping out of the bottom of the chest, creeping slowly across the floor and soaking into the carpet like some kind of blob monster from an old B horror movie. There was a soft sound, just at the edge of my hearing...oh god, it was a sound of pain, someone whimpering because they didn't have a voice left to scream with. There was a loud thump, and I jerked and almost lost my grip on Wufei's shoulders. I jerked my gaze toward the source of the sound--Johannes' desk. The vampire hadn't moved at all--he might as well have been a statue--but Tony was on his knees, his hands clenched into fists, a look of need so intense that is was almost pain on his face. Slowly, he began to crawl toward the spreading puddle of blood on his hands and knees, like he was some kind of animal. Johannes and Angelo didn't make any move to stop him; hell, Angelo looked like he was about ready to follow suit. I couldn't look away, no matter how much I wanted to, as Tony crawled closer and closer to the blood, and the whimpering sounded more loudly in my ears with each passing moment.

Tony reached out on huge, shaking hand, and dipped his fingers in the blood, bringing them toward his mouth like he was going to suck them off...

There was a loud crash as Wufei yanked the door open, and he jerked me through. The whimpering turned into screaming as soon as we crossed the threshold out into the hall, and there was more screaming, except it was a sound that no human throat could hope to produce, and laughter.

Wufei and I booked it for the door at the opposite end of the basement as fast as we could. We didn't stop running until we were back at the school.

1The Gutenberg Bible, which was the first bible to be made using the first printing press. It was completed on or around August 15, 1456 in the town of Mainz, Germany. 


	6. Chapter 6

Pyractomena Borealis VI

"What the hell were you thinking?" Heero snarled at me. His nose was about an inch away from touching mine.

I winced and repositioned the ice bag that I was holding to my head. "I didn't do it on purpose, you know," I said. "You can ask Wufei if you don't believe me. It's not like we went trotting through the Theater District, saying 'Here vampy, vampy, vampy...' Not even I'm that stupid, so give me a little credit, ok?" My patience was starting to wear a little thin. A guy can only take so much yelling before he starts yelling back, and I really didn't want to yell back, because my head would probably explode.

Wufei and I had arrived back at the dorms breathless from our headlong fleeing spree, though Wufei was a little worse off than me, mostly because he'd been doing most of the work. He'd been pretty much carrying me along the entire time. We'd told everyone what had happened as succinctly as we could, and then we'd all went back to our separate rooms to get a handle on things and try to think of solutions. Unfortunately, since Heero and my room were one and the same, I was trapped with him, and he was in fine form tonight. He'd managed to keep it in until we'd gotten back to the room, but as soon as I'd gotten my ice pack out and sat down, he went off into a rant that would've done Wufei proud. Sometimes it surprises me that on occasion, Heero can dredge up enough emotion to go off in a foaming at the mouth tirade. I guess it's a good thing, since that means he's still got some feelings left. Most of the time, though, it just dismays me, since I'm the one that's usually on the receiving end.

"You should have been more careful," Heero said harshly. He glared at me.

I sighed quietly. This was really wearing thin. "I did take backup, remember?"

"You should have taken more, or you shouldn't have gone out at all."

"I made the mistake of assuming that vampires don't normally jump people in the middle of crowded streets. So shoot me." Whoops, that was a mistake to say. For all I knew, Heero would do it.

"Don't tempt me," he said, very dryly.

I continued on quickly before he could say anything else. "Come on, Heero. My head hurts. Would you stop yelling at me already?"

"You could have been killed."

"Yeah, so, I could get killed every time I dare to get out of bed in the morning. So could you. So could anyone. Yelling at me isn't going to do anything but make me as cranky as you."

It had the desired effect. Heero paused, mid tirade, and turned to face me, an incredulous look on his face. "Cranky...?" he finally said, one of his eyebrows twitching upward.

"Yeah," I said, "cranky. I think you need a nap."

The corner of Heero's mouth quirked into something approximating a smile, and I relaxed. I'd managed to break his concentration, so he wasn't going to be able to get up enough steam to start yelling at me again. I hoped. I settled the icebag against my throbbing head a little more comfortably and then took a moment to appreciate just how cute Heero looked. I just love the little half smile he gets when I've said something that has him mildly confused or dismayed. It's almost as good of an expression as the smile he gets when he's completed a mission. It makes him look young and innocent and downright boyscout-ish, an impression that inevitably gets ruined when he starts blowing stuff up.

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the little smile vanished and Heero scowled at me again. "You have to be more careful. This entire school, as well as our cover, is in danger now."

I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes. I was too tired to be annoyed, but I was trying anyway. "Look, I was careful. I took back up, like I was supposed to. I went armed, like I was supposed to. I stuck to populated areas where Wufei and I should have supposedly been able to melt into the crowd, like I was supposed to. I followed the same procedure we've followed in every damn city we've been in."

There was a sound from the other end of the room, Heero's bed settling. He must have sat down. "It worked before," he said.

"They never came looking for us before," I said.

"They came looking for you."

Suddenly, I knew what was happening. Before, when we'd dealt with Kalin, it had been our battle, in the end. We'd taken the little war to their doorstep, always advancing like normal. We'd still almost gotten killed, but we were used to it, like that. It had been straight forward; we were good, they were bad. But now, we seemed to be stuck between two groups of vampires, and they weren't acting like the last one. Heero didn't know what to make of it. We were all off balance, and I knew how much Heero hated not taking decisive action. "Yeah, they did." I sighed softly. "I think I've gone and made myself a reputation, Heero. With the wrong crowd, no less."

"It seems so."

"We're screwed."

"Yes," Heero said.

"So now it's up to us to get unscrewed." I didn't want to deal with this. I wanted to crawl under my blanket and never come out. I hate having to clean up my own messes.

"Yes."

I closed my eyes. This was making me tired. "Heero."

"Yes?"

"You're a real big fucking help." I wondered if he got the sarcasm. Then I wondered why I even cared.

I don't know if it was the head injury or the freak out factor, but I had a majorly weird dream. I was in Maxwell Church again, but for once when it was whole and beautiful, instead of the twisted wreck that the battle had left it. I was kneeling on the smooth, cold stone floor in front of the altar. It must have been evening; the altar was covered in candles, and there was no light shining through the single stained glass window. I didn't need the light, though; I knew that window almost as well as I knew my own face, an abstract scene of Jesus standing before the cross with the sun shining behind him. I loved that window.

Too bad that it got shattered into a thousand pieces about the time my life fell apart.

I looked at my hands. They were so small--had they ever been that small, even when I was a child? I guess they must have. My fingernails were ragged...I used to chew on them when I was little, and there was dirt ingrained underneath that no scrub brush could ever get out. There was a rosary draped over my hands, and I recognized it as well. The beads were made of amethyst and rose quartz. It had belonged to Sister Helen. She told me once that it, in turn, had belonged to her mother.

It was a familiar scene, one that I could remember from every night that I'd lived in Maxwell Church. The candles, the rosary, the scratchy clothes I was wearing, the cold stone of the floor under my bony knees...everything was as it should be. Father Maxwell was even kneeling next to me, his head bowed as he prayed.

Wait a minute...Father Maxwell wasn't that tall...

The man next to me looked up, then slowly stood, crossing himself. A cross hung from a thin chain around his neck and caught the light of the candles.

It was Johannes.

I gasped and tried to stand up, my stomach clenching. This was wrong. No, this couldn't be happening, not even in my dream Maxwell Church. Instead of getting up, I caught my foot in one of my pants legs; they'd always been too long for me since I was a lot smaller than the kids they normally got at the church. I fell back against the pew behind me and managed to get the breath knocked out of me. The only thing that kept me from falling forward onto the floor was a quick grab for the back of the pew. As soon as I'd managed to get a solid hold on the pew, I looked up. Johannes was looking right at me, a small smile on his lips. Slowly, he turned to face the back of the church. I couldn't help but look too.

There was no one, at least where Johannes was looking. In the place of the statues of angels that had made up the four columns on the right side of the church stood Quatre, Trowa, Wufei, and Heero, pale and still like they were carved from stone themselves.

Johannes held out a hand toward the back of the church like someone was there and reaching out for him. I couldn't see anyone, but the shadows grew deeper until they swallowed the light of the candles, and I couldn't see anything anymore. I curled up into a little ball, hugging my knees against my chest as a cold breeze filtered through the church.

The chill breath of wind had a voice, one that tugged at the depths of my memories.

/My Johannes.../

I sat up quickly. Unlike my dream, my room was bright with sunlight. Some dork (Heero) had forgotten to pull the curtains across the windows when he got up.

Wait a second. It was light. Really light. Like high noon type light. What the hell?

The door opened, and before I knew what had happened, my gun was out from under the corner of the mattress and pointed at a completely unimpressed Heero. Who me, jumpy? Naw. I prefer to use the word 'cautious.'

Heero raised an eyebrow at me.

I grinned sheepishly and tucked the Browning back under the mattress. "Next time knock, will ya?" I said, playing it cool.

"This is my room as well."

He had me there. Well, when all else fails, go for the offensive. I don't like being startled. "So?" I said.

He ignored me. I hate it when he does that. One day, I'm going to bite him. Then again, the cleaning staff would be scrubbing bloodstains off the walls with toothbrushes for months. Not Heero's. Mine. "Did you get enough sleep? You seem rather..." he smiled wryly, "cranky."

Ok, I REALLY wanted to bite him now. Time for a subject change. "What time is it?"

Heero flipped on the display of the damn devil laptop. "Five minutes after twelve," he said.

"And I'm assuming that there's a reason I'm in bed when I should be eating lunch."

"Yes." Heero sat down at his desk. "We were all of the opinion that you were injured badly enough that it would be advisable to allow you to sleep late. We already gave your excuse to the teachers."

"Huh." I sat back in bed. My head hurt, yeah, but not that much. I'd had a lot worse injuries and managed to function normally. Well...or as normally as I can function. Still...I mentally ran through my schedule. No tests, no major assignments due, just lecture after boring lecture. I grinned, despite the fact that it made my head ache slightly. Note to self...Advil. Lots of it. And soon. "Alright...so I'm off for the rest of the day, ne?" Looked like good 'ol Heero had done me a favor for once and gotten me out of the hell known as school.

Heero looked at me like I'd just asked him if he had a dead rat for supper last night. "You're staying right here for the rest of the day."

"I'm what?" No, that couldn't be happening. Trapped in a room with Heero, his laptop, and a pounding headache all day? God couldn't possibly be so cruel.

"We picked up your homework for you."

Yes, God could be that cruel. 


	7. Chapter 7

Pyractomena Borealis VII

"Excuse me, lady! Sorry! Sorry!" Taking my life into my hands, I ducked down and scooped bunches of bags and little boxes into my arms. "Here!" I thrust the armload of stuff at the little old lady that I'd almost knocked over.  
She grabbed her packages away from me and quickly disappeared off into the crowd, probably worried that I was going to run her over again or something. I ducked quickly and fought my way up to a more vertical position when some guy that must have been a sumo wrestler in a previous life almost ran ME down. Low to the ground in the middle of a crowded walkway in downtown Tokyo's shopping district on a weekend was not a great place to be. And I'd managed to lose Heero. Again. Damnit. I pushed through the crowd, liberally elbowing people out of my way until I got to a small clear space right by the doorway of the store. And as luck would have it, there he was, waiting for me and somehow managing to look smug and impatient at the same time. "You know, you could try waiting up for me."

He looked at me like I'd suggested the sky was green. "You could move more quickly."

"We're shopping. You're not supposed to move quickly when you're shopping. It's not a freaking mission." I glared at him, moving a little bit closer so he could hear me over the dull roar of the crowd. "Chill out, will you? I've still got a headache."

Heero snorted, then turned and melted into the crowd again. Shit. You'd think that the only guy on earth with bad enough dress sense to wear nothing but green tanktops and black spandex shorts would stand out in the crowd. Not so. The idiot could vanish like a rabbit into the briar patch if he felt like it. I took a brief moment to think about the way his shorts looked on him...and how cool the tank top of his had to be in the melting heat as compared to my long sleeved (HOT) shirt. Maybe he wasn't the idiot in the scenario after all. I started pushing my way through the crowd after him.

Despite all of my internal bitching, I still was having fun. It was the weekend, and I loved weekends. It was during the day, so I didn't have to worry about vampires, which was a bonus. Also, we'd decided that we needed to take a break from trying to figure out how to deal with the new mess because the confrontation with the vampire and his buddies had ruined my last dress shirt, so I needed to buy a couple new ones if I wanted to show up in the classroom on Monday. This was Heero's big idea, not mine. I had absolutely no objection to not being able to go to class, but seemingly, he was subscribing to the "misery loves company" school of thought. Still, it meant being outside in the fresh air and sunlight, even if it was kind of hot, and it meant I got to have Heero to myself for a whole day. I hoped. Furtively, I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting Relena to jump out from the side of a building. I was getting too paranoid. Still, she was a lot more persistent then the vampires could ever hope to be...and unlike the vampires, if she pissed me off, I couldn't shoot her.

I squeezed between a man and his wife and somehow managed to catch up to Heero. I quickly grabbed the back of his shirt and held on. It wasn't a leash, but it would work. He glanced back at me, and for just a moment, I thought he smiled before he went back to cutting through the crowd, this time towing me in his wake. He must have spotted whatever store he was looking for, since he was moving with so much purpose that it was a wonder the crowd didn't part for us like the Red Sea had for Moses. Heero pulled an abrupt, almost ninety degree turn and I lost my grip on his shirt, then managed to trip on a non-existent crack in the sidewalk. I love it when that happens, really. For once, I didn't fall on my face. Instead, I just stumbled around for a second in my best spastic fashion before someone grabbed me by the arm and yanked me out of the heat and into the dim recesses of a department store entryway.

It was Heero of course. For once, he had the common courtesy to keep a hold of my arm until I managed to catch my balance. I glanced up at him, and he was smirking. Shit, I hate that smirk sometimes.

"Are you done?" he asked.

I glared at him. "Bite me."

One of Heero's eyebrows twitched, and he gave me a 'don't-tempt-me-  
because-you-won't-like-it' look--the problem with that being that I probably would like it, a great deal--before he turned and went through the second set of glass doors that led into the store proper.

I managed to not trip over the tiles in the entryway and followed him before the doors shut. It was like we'd stepped into a different world from the street outside. It wasn't as bright, so I actually had to take off my sunglasses, and it was even cooler than the entryway had been. I could even hear the soft hum of chilled air being put through the ceiling vents over the soft, new-  
agey music that was being piped through the store. I've never understood why stores always have music like that playing. I guess it's meant to be soothing. Instead, I either feel like I'm trapped in an elevator, or depending on the new-agey music, like I'm watching "Invasion of the Pod People" without the benefit of Joel and the bots.1 It's just...weird. Not exactly the shopping environment I'm looking for. Then again, I've been in a store where they play my kind of music, as in heavy metal.2 That wasn't exactly my kind of shopping environment either.

Heero had paused for a minute when he got through the doors, and I managed to grab the back of his tank top again. He looked back at me. "What?"

I tried not to laugh in his face. "Somehow, I don't think we're in the right place to get me shirts." I pointed to the side, where several metal racks festooned with bright red and blue lingerie sat. The entire floor was a fest of bright colors garnished with flowing bits of silky pastel stuff that might have been shirts or might have been nightgowns...I really couldn't tell either way. "I mean, yeah, I guess one of those red things would look good on me, but I don't think it comes in my cup size." I wiggled my eyebrows at Heero.

"Idiot," he commented, then surveyed the floor slowly. For once, he seemed at a loss for something to do. I guess his training hadn't covered the eventuality of ending up in the middle of the women's department.

"And you have to admit, the kinda gold lame type...er...whatever-the-hell-it-  
is over there would look great on you..." Sometimes, I really don't know when to quit. I was rewarded with a classic Yuy death glare. I grinned at him, grabbed his arm, and pulled him into the depths of the store, searching for a sales clerk.

It's kind of funny how the clerks always go on break at the same time. I mean, really, you'd think they wouldn't want to young men wandering around in the underwear department unsupervised. After about ten minutes of wandering aimlessly through isles of purses and shoes and god knows what else, we managed to find someone, or rather, someone managed to find us.

One minute I was walking along, minding my own business and trying to find a clerk or a floor plan or something, and the next I was viscously attacked from behind. Before I knew what hit me, I was engulfed in a cloud of sickly sweet flowery scent. I whipped around to confront my attacker, a short, mousy young woman that seemed to have a vapid smile permanently stuck on her face. She bowed politely at me, still smiling, completely ignoring the fact that we were now blocking the aisle, which appeared to be causing a pretty bad traffic jam.

"Good day, ma'am!" she chirruped. "That's our famous white lace lilly perfume. Lovely, isn't it?"

I just stared at her.

"Ma'am?" her smile faded a little, replaced with a look of genuine concern. "Are you alright?"

I sneezed violently, then went back to staring at her, this time with my eyes watering profusely. "...ma'am...?" I choked out. I heard a soft noise behind me that sounded suspiciously like a quiet laugh, but I must have been imagining it. Heero? Laugh at something other than mass destruction? Naw. I sneezed once more. Then again...

The girl was watching me like I'd just grown a second head, which I suppose I had, in a way. "I...I'm sorry, sir," she stuttered. "I just saw your hair...and...oh, I'm so sorry!"

I sneezed again. I don't know how women manage to wear perfume...god, it smells awful. "It's...okay." I managed to get out between sneezes.

Heero appeared from behind me. "It's alright." he said, a little more gently than I would have thought him capable of. "It happens to him all the time. I keep telling him that he needs to get a haircut."

"--hey!"

Heero firmly grabbed my upper arm and started pulling me away from the girl, cutting right through the crowd. I glanced at him, and he was wearing an expression that looked suspiciously like a smirk. "It's nice to see that SOMEONE'S amused." I said in my most snide tone, even putting on my most elegant of sneers just for him. The effect was ruined when I sneezed again. "God..." I moaned, "I smell like Relena now."

"To be perfectly fair to...her...she wears less perfume."

"Oh, that is hitting below the belt, man..." I tell you, some days it just isn't worth chewing through the restraints. I refrained from saying anything else, because I had a feeling that if I gave Heero the opportunity for another nasty jab, he'd take it. And then I'd have no choice but to kill him. Well...try to kill him. Or at least maim him. Well...TRY to maim him. Shit.

Eventually, we did manage to find our way up to the men/boy's department, which was on the second floor, right next to the girl's department, and we had to walk by the lingerie section again to get to it. Life's just not fair. The crowd on the second floor was pretty thin, a nice change from downstairs. I guess not too many guys go shopping on their days off. I know that if I'd had my way, I would have been sitting around in my underwear and reading, or even better, blowing shit up (well...I would have been fully dressed for that). I had managed to steal a copy of the chem lab's key yesterday...

We navigated our way through the boy's section of the floor, weaving in and out between racks of merrily colored shirts with various licensed cartoon characters on them, as well as miniature copies of the school uniform that I was subjected to every weekday and several variations thereof. It's amazing the amount people will pay and the lengths to which they will go to dress their kids in the most humiliating things imaginable. I guess that was one thing I managed to get out of by not having any relatives in the land of the living.

The men's section had a counter specifically for school uniforms, which was right next to the counter specifically for school uniforms for elementary school girls and boys. As soon as Heero spotted it, he dragged me over, narrowly missing running me into a big display of Sanrio products. He didn't let go of my arm until we were both standing in front of the counter, like he thought I was going to make a break for it or something. Geeze...and I was the one that normally had to drag him out to go shopping. Some people.

A little old lady popped out from under the counter and smiled at us both without really looking at us, her face turning into a mass of wrinkles. Considering that she looked like she was about 100, she didn't seem to be doing too bad for her age--her hair was still nice and thick even if it was pure white, and she was moving really well. "Good day, boys." Her voice was also nice and strong, almost commanding. She'd probably been one kick ass lady when she was younger. "What do you need?"

Heero didn't say anything, so after a minute, I shrugged and decided to take over. Since I was here, I figured I might as well get what I came for. "I need three white dress shirts for a 78a style school uniform, please," I said as pleasantly as I could.

The minute I spoke, the smile disappeared off of the little old grandma-  
type's face. I've never seen someone change so completely before. One minute, she was the old lady from across the street, a little loopy but otherwise cool, and the next instant, she was a lioness--old, yeah, but sure as hell not something you wanted to mess with or even get to close to. "Duo Maxwell," she said quietly. All the friendliness had drained from her voice, leaving nothing but cold behind.

I shivered slightly. It wasn't the voice...my teachers used that one me all the time. No, it was something else. The old lady felt a lot bigger than she looked, and I had the feeling that she could reach out and squash me like a cockroach if I so much as looked at her wrong. This old woman had POWER. "Yes ma'am," I said quietly.

She nodded slightly. "I recognize you from the memories that have been shared with me. You have a great deal of explaining to do, young man."

The phrasing was just too perfect, but I didn't say anything. I knew better than to joke around with this, even if I had no idea what the hell was going on. I could feel Heero almost radiating tension beside me. "I don't know what you're talking about, ma'am," I said.

"I don't suppose you would, since you're obviously an amateur," she said. The room temperature felt like it dropped, and I glanced behind me, out of instinct more than anything else. A man was walking toward us. Suddenly, he stopped mid-step, then turned and headed the opposite direction, a faintly puzzled expression on his face. "I was going to come looking for you when I had a spare moment, but you've kindly taken care of that for me."

The hair on my arms stood up and did a little hula dance, and my world shifted ever so slightly. The woman blurred, then snapped back into focus, and she looked quite different. While she was still obviously old, she looked much more well preserved...her hair was pure black without a trace of white in it. A series of elaborate, blue ink tattoos crawled up her cheeks and into her hairline. That wasn't what I was really looking at, though. What had me was the fact that her eyes were pure white, sightless and milky, yet somehow, I knew she was looking right at me.

"What are you?" I said, a lot more steadily than I felt.

"You already know," she said.

And I did. "You're a witch."

"Very good," she said quietly.

Her power breathed over my skin, enveloping me in a cloud of unseen energy. "A very powerful witch," I said, "and very old."

"I am the highest of the high witches of the Tokyo coven, Duo Maxwell."

"What--" Heero started to say, his voice very dark.

"Be silent." The high witch gestured, and strangely enough, Heero shut up. I was really tempted to ask her how she's done it. I would come in handy next time Heero felt the need to rant at me about something or the other. "Maxwell, you killed one of my witches."

I let myself have a little taste of relief. "That's what this is about? Let me explain--"

"There are no explanations, Maxwell. I am well aware of the fact that she was the servant of one of the more odious vampires that dared to tread in our territory." The old woman's face showed just how distasteful she found that to be...I would have rated it somewhere between a dead rat floating in the pool and an infomercial marathon on channel 27.

It didn't make sense. "And you're mad at me for killing--"

"She was a witch, Maxwell. She belonged to me and the rest of the high witches. She was ours to judge and execute. Rest assured that she would have faced our wrath for her crimes, but your wrong does not make a right. You came perilously close to revealing our presence. Only Hara saved us from discovery, and that, too, you must answer for."

"Now wait a damn minute--" I started to say, but the witch interrupted me again.

"This is for our protection as well as yours. You don't seem to be terribly cautious about using what power you have, Maxwell. We aren't the only group that you have offended and angered, but we are the first." She straightened to her full height, which was, shockingly enough, taller than me. "You will face the council of our coven, Maxwell, and you will explain yourself."

I saw Heero clench his hands into fists out of the corner of my eye, and without thinking, I did the same thing. I was angry now. I wasn't a witch, I was doing my job, and I was damn sick of people pushing me around. As if pissy vampires weren't enough, I had to deal with a bunch of witches now too. "I don't have to--" I saw the witch open her mouth to interrupt me yet again, and my frustration level went through the roof.

Three things happened at once--the witch started to say something, pointing at me in a rather threatening manner...I took a step forward, intending to go toe to toe with her, since I was just that pissed...and I heard an all too familiar voice squeal, "HEERO!"

Then the Sanrio display behind us exploded, sending flaming Hello Kitty toys shooting in all directions like some kind of sick, too cute shrapnel, and I had other things to worry about.

1 Mystery Science Theater 3000 reference.  
2 This is a reference back to Carmelita's, the little shop of horrors from Acherontia Atropos. 


	8. Chapter 8

Pyractomena Borealis Part 8 By Katsu (no Miko)  
--Standard Disclaimers Apply --This part courtesy of my first, second, and third line bosses, and their decision to have a three hour long pitch and bitch session today. :)

The Sanrio display behind us exploded in a flash of bright light and blue flames, the sound momentarily deafening me. Instinctively, I threw myself to the floor, just as a blue plastic Pochaco lunchbox, which just happened to be covered with hungry yellow fire, went whizzing by above me, right about at head height. Damn, that would have hurt.

Before the lunchbox had even flown completely by, I was already making like a cockroach and scuttling for the dubious safety of a pants display. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Heero scurrying my way, gun in hand.

Well, I felt better. Even the perfect soldier couldn't perform a successful scatter for cover without looking like a bug. Glad I wasn't the only one. Without a moment of hesitation, I dove underneath the rack of pants and peered out through the forest of legs to keep track of what was happening while I decided what to do.

A plush Hello Kitty winged its way by, its utterly cute little face a mask of fire. I could see it flying towards the witch, who hadn't even flinched when the display exploded. She didn't make a move to dodge or anything. About a foot away from her chest, the stuffed animal halted midair, staying there for a moment before it flared up into a fireball and was consumed completely.

Ok, as much as I hated to admit it, this lady had guts. I know I wouldn't have been able to stand my ground if confronted by the Hello Kitty doll from hell. Then again, I can barely stand my ground against the normal, non-spicy variety--I have a pretty low tolerance for sweetness, and those things make me go into sugar shock.

I glanced over to the side. Heero had been closer to the rack than me, and he was already there, laying on the floor like I was to utilize the small amount of protection the pants had to offer. He was staring straight ahead, and his eyes were wide, the pupils so dilated that they almost completely swallowed the blue of his irises. "Heero!" I hissed. No response. Not a good sign.

I glanced forward again to see what he was seeing. The witch was looking right at us, now, the tattoos on her face almost glowing in the now flickering light; half of the overhead lights had gone out in the explosion, probably lost to a Keropi pencil set lodged in the circuitry.

Heero wasn't looking at her, though. He was watching the fire. The plastic display was still flaming merrily away, deceptively cool looking blue flames crackling along the shelves. The air was getting hard to breathe, full of the stench of burning plastic and insulation, presumably coming from somewhere in the ceiling. All of the white acoustic tiles over the display were gone, and I could see flickers of orange light dancing along the concrete of the real ceiling. Pieces of paper and cardboard, pink stationary and playing cards fluttered to the ground, their fall much to slow to be real.

That's how it always is; I don't know if it's an effect of the explosion or the semi-close brush with death. Whatever it is, there's always a moment of perfect stillness after the destruction, where the entire world moves like just a few seconds are stretched out into several hours, and there's no sound or even feeling, really. Fights are almost the same way; the world holds its breath and waits for you to move. As crazy as it sounds, it's one of the most beautiful, perfect things I experience. For that instant, you're not afraid, or worried, or angry; you just are. Now, it had only been maybe eight seconds since the explosion, but it felt infinitely longer.

There was a flash overhead; something in the ceiling sparking. It was like some kind of signal--all at once, time returned to its previously scheduled programming (already in progress.) The fire alarm went off, and so did the sprinkler system, showering freezing cold water down on us. I, manly man that I am, let out a protesting yelp. I don't like being cold, okay? I also don't like being surprised by the cold.

Heero still hadn't moved, and we were out of time. I could almost feel the floor rumbling, and over the sound of the fire alarm and the steady hiss of the sprinklers, I could hear muffled screaming. The people on the floors above us and below us were panicking, since the fire alarm was most likely going off in every part of the building--not to mention that anyone in the immediate area would have heard the explosion. It was probably already a stampede; time to make tracks before the panic spread out into the street and turned into a full-blown riot.

The best way to stay out of trouble, other than to not cause any to begin with--like that would happen in my lifetime--was to be somewhere else by the time the authorities had arrived. I learned that one a long time ago, before I even knew my own name. I didn't really want to spend a night in the police station for an act of pyromania I didn't commit, and I also knew that simple inquiries had a tendency to dig up the most interesting dirt, which would be a bad thing.

I snapped my fingers in front of Heero's face and got rewarded by him grabbing my hand in a bone-crushing grip. Oh yeah, and he stuck his gun in my face as well, but I was used to that by now. Really. I love it when he does that. It's so cute. Right.

"Heero, it's just me, chill!" I hissed at him, prying my one hand out of his grasp and shoving the gun to one side with the other. "I know you like watching the pretty flames, but we have to go. NOW." I grabbed him by the wrist and managed to drag him out into the open before he managed to object in any way. The moment I left the protection of the rack, my bangs got plastered to my forehead with the water still raining merrily down courtesy of the sprinkler system.

Heero finally snapped out of whatever had him distracted, disengaged my hand and grabbed my wrist in turn. I didn't mind if he took the lead now. With my bangs making me look like the Shaggy DA I couldn't see much of anything anyway. Sometimes I wonder why I put up with long hair.

"Maxwell..." the sound hissed above the fire alarm.

Oh yeah. The witch. I always forget the little details.

I turned toward the source of the voice, scraping my bangs away from my eyes with my free hand. The witch was looking--if looking was the right word--right at me. Water was cascading around her in an egg shaped shell, flowing down to the floor. It was hard to see her clearly, but I had the feeling that she was still perfectly dry in there. One of the benefits of being a witch, I guessed. "Nice trick," I commented.

She ignored me. It was probably just as well. "We will talk later, Maxwell."

With a lot more bravado than I felt, I flipped a salute at her. "Take a number, lady. I'm one popular, happening guy." Sister Helen always said that I never could stand to let someone else have the last word.

Before the witch had a chance to say anything else, Heero and I took off running. Or, to be more accurate, we took off running as well as we could considering that the floor was an absolute mess of wet ash and paper--not exactly the best material for stable footing. Still, we were doing ok in the speed department, heading for the far end of the floor where the emergency stairs/fire escape was located, when suddenly, IT struck

"HEERO!"

I'd thought that I'd heard her just before the display went up. I guessed I was hoping that I'd imagined it. If only.

Relena threw herself out from behind a display of now soaking wet sweaters and ran for Heero. Heero, to his credit, didn't jump like I did, but he did turn really quickly and began to bring his gun to bear on Relena.

As much as I really wouldn't mind Relena permanently disappearing, I figured that letting Heero cap her because she'd startled him and he was feeling hair triggered wouldn't do a lot of good for anyone. So as he was turning, I reached out and plucked the gun from his hand, immediately tucking it into the back of my pants, under my shirt. I was so fast that Heero didn't even notice. What can I say...an interesting childhood leads to useful skills.

While Heero was busy staring at his suddenly empty hand with a wonderfully dumbfounded look on his face, Relena ran right into him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and immediately burst into tears. Heero let his hand drop and looked down at the girl that currently had her face buried against his chest. Then he looked up at me, his face a mask of complete and utter confusion.

I was torn between grinding my teeth and wanting to slap Relena away from my partner, and just wanting to laugh because Heero had never looked so completely and totally lost before as long as I'd known him. I settled for the middle ground as far as diplomacy went. "We can't leave her here," I shouted in an effort to be heard over the alarm, sprinklers, and the rising sounds of panic coming from beneath us. "Let's go!" I pointed at the emergency stairs door for a second before a set out at a scrabbling trot, trying not to slip and fall.

Heero followed me, half-pulling and half-carrying Relena along. A couple seconds later, I kicked the door to the emergency stairs. There wasn't any real reason to kick it open, since it wasn't jammed or anything...I'd just always wanted to do that. I held the door open so Heero could bring Relena through, then let it slam shut. The sounds that had been nearly deafening us for the past five minutes abruptly retreated to a soft, almost imperceptible murmur as the door shut. For a long moment, the only sounds in the stairwell were Relena's quiet sobs and snifflings, and the sound of water dripping off of all of our clothes and hair and onto the floor.

Heero looked down at Relena, as if making sure she was still firmly attached and there was no easy way for him to escape her. Then he looked up at me.

I looked at Heero. Heero looked at me. After a pause, I shrugged in answer to his silent question. Heero's eyes narrowed dangerously--whoops, maybe I'd thought he was asking a different question. Nah. With a soft sigh, I stepped forward and put my hands on Relena's shoulders, gently prying her off of Heero. It was harder than it sounded...the girl was clinging to him worse than sticky latex to a car door--do NOT ask me how I know--and I had to put a lot of effort into getting her let go. "Hey, your Peacecraft-ness.  
let go of Heero. He needs to breathe. Come on..."

Her grip loosened a little and I pulled her back to stand on her own, much to Heero's very obvious relief. I could feel her shoulders shaking under my hands, and she had her head bowed. Water was dripping from her bangs in thin streams. "Alright...now, are you okay?" I peered down at Relena, trying to see her face. She muttered something incoherent, and I tried again. "Come on, girl, are you okay?"

This time, I could hear her answer, kind of. Her voice was really soft and very choked. "I don't know."

I sighed quietly to myself and looked at Heero. No help there. With another sigh, I pulled Relena into my arms. She resisted weakly for a moment. "It's okay," I said quietly, and she started crying all over again, clinging to the front of my shirt. It didn't really bother me like it usually would, if for nothing else than the fact that my shirt was already completely soaked. Some tears, snot, and wrinkles wouldn't hurt it. I looked down at Relena and couldn't help notice that the ends of her hair were singed. She must have been really close to the display when it exploded, which would also explain why she was so upset. As much as she followed Heero around, she'd never really gotten close enough to the action to be in danger after the first time Heero saved her--and I'd had it on good authority that she'd gone off an had a round of hysterics after that was done. Even with the hot dog cart thing, she and Heero had been pretty far down the path when it had gone up. She hadn't been close enough to feel the heat of the fire.

Curiously enough, I found myself having a lot of sympathy for her. Relena might have been the same age as Heero and I, but she was still a kid, and we were soldiers. What we considered to be ordinary and every day would make most civilians wet their pants and then some. I looked up at Heero. He was looking at me really oddly. I understood that. I didn't make any secret of the fact that I wouldn't feel bad if Relena dropped off the face of the earth, and here I was, letting her cry on me. I shrugged at him. I used to wonder why I felt the need to be nice to Relena, considering she rarely even acknowledged my presence. It was probably because I thought, deep down inside, Relena had a good heart. It didn't mean that I liked her any more, or that she was any less of an insufferable, self-righteous little snot, but it meant that I was willing to cut her slack that Heero wasn't. I knew how hard it was to find genuinely kind people in the world, but I also knew they existed. I don't think Heero did.

I gave her a couple minutes to cry. I didn't want to wait around any more than that, so once the time was up, I gently pushed her away. She scrubbed at her eyes with her hands. "Feeling a little better now?" I asked quietly.

I guess who she'd been crying at finally dawned on Relena. She glanced up really quickly, then looked away. "I'm fine," She said, rather coldly. I wasn't really expecting any thanks, but still, it was annoying.

It was pretty obvious the little moment of acting like an actual human being was over, dead, and buried. Not that I really cared. "Good. We need to get out of here now. I'm assuming you left your monkey boy in the parking garage?"

Relena shot me a glare that could have curdled cream. "Pargen is waiting for me in the garage, yes."

"Great." I put on one of my best, most charming grins, then abruptly turned her around and gave her a little push toward the top of the stairs. "Let's go. Time's a-wasting." I ignored the malicious but lovely thought of what a bigger push would have done. The short-lived, temporary truce was over on both sides, after all.

"Heero..." Relena started to turn.

"Not right now." I said before Heero had a chance to open his mouth. "We need to go. Either get moving or get out of the way."

Relena, the contrary little beast, planted herself firmly in the middle of the stairway and glared at me. "I'm not talking to you. I need to talk to Heero."

We didn't have time to argue with her--we'd already wasted MORE than enough on her. I looked at Heero. Heero looked at me. I jerked my head toward Relena and grinned. After a moment of consideration, he nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching like he was trying really hard not to smile. "Let's GO!" I yelled. At the same moment, Heero and I charged at Relena. We each grabbed an arm, lifted her up so that her feet were several inches above the floor, and barreled down the steps with her between us.

The look on Relena's face was priceless. It almost made everything else, explosion and all, worth it.

Through an unspoken agreement, Heero and I didn't talk about what had happened at all until we'd been back in the dorms for a while and both of us had had a chance to get dried off and change our clothes. I took some extra time to take a shower. Ash or something had gotten into my hair, and the sun shining down on us on our way back to the dorms after we'd ditched Relena with her butler had baked it in.

I secured my towel firmly around my waist and grabbed my hairbrush before I opened the bathroom door. Heero was sitting at his desk, firmly attached to his laptop as always. "Well, that was fun," I said as my opening sally. Heero stayed silent. "The witches are after us now"  
Heero stopped what he was doing and looked back at me. "I noticed."

That was helpful. "Do you think we can avoid them long enough to get this other thing cleared up? I've got a one cluster fuck limit."

"It depends on how much the witch is going to press the issue." Heero shrugged. "If she's waited this long to find us, I doubt that she is in a hurry."

"Yeah, but she knows who we are now," I pointed out. An odd thought occurred to me. "Do you think she's the one that blew up the Sanrio display?"

Heero turned around in his chair to look at me. "Unknown," he said. "There are no indications that she did..."

"...but no indications that she didn't," I finished. "She didn't seem very surprised by it." I sat down on my bed and started brushing my hair out, pausing for a moment to flip the radio on, first. I could listen with half an ear and see if they said anything interesting about the fire when they got to a newsbreak.

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything. She may have been surprised, but could have hidden it very well."

"Or she could have set it off, though I don't know why she would. That woman sounded like an absolute fanatic about keeping things out of sight, and setting fire to the place you work, more notable right by where you work, isn't a good way to keep a low profile. I don't like this. Two explosions like that, happening without probable cause. It's too much to be a coincidence."

"We established that it was possible that the hot dog cart had a bad gas line," Heero pointed out.

"Yeah, and then we also established that neither of us trust that theory. And I'm sorry, there isn't probable cause on this one. Kitty-chan, while cute and fluffy, is not known for her talent at spontaneous combustion."

Heero snorted.

"What is it...first time's a coincidence, second time's a happenstance, third time's a conspiracy." I shook my head. "We're already on time two. I've got a bad feeling that there's going to be a time three. All this...the witch showing up, another explosion...It's too convenient. I don't like it."

"You think someone is trying to eliminate us." We'd both thought that from the start, but now, on the second try, it was pretty much confirmed.

I hit the bedpost with my hairbrush. "Jesus, Heero, when is someone NOT trying to eliminate us?"

He shrugged. "Relena was present and both explosions. It's possible that she's connected to them."

"What, as in setting them?" I thought. "It doesn't make sense. She's annoying, but I don't think she's crazy enough to be homicidal. And how would she be setting the fires? She wasn't even near the hot dog cart."

"After the last half year, you believe that a person must use purely physical means to achieve a goal?" Heero asked, raising his eyebrow.

THAT stopped me dead in my tracks. "What, you think she's using magic? Like some kind of pyrokinesis?" I shuddered. "I hope you're joking."

Heero shook his head.

"God, now that's a scary thought." I put my head in my hands. "Someone as unstable as Relena wandering around with the ability to blow shit up with magic." I shuddered. "I think I'm going to have nightmares now, thanks."

"It's a possibility." Heero said, before turning back toward his laptop.

"--caused the evacuation of the new Takada department store in the Tokyo shopping district." A woman's voice was saying over my radio. I turned the volume up a little and went back to brushing my hair, my train of thought derailed. "Hey, they're talking about us, Heero." I looked out the window, listening to the radio with half an ear.

"Hn."

"No one was injured by the fire, though severe damage was incurred on the second floor and several people received minor injuries during the evacuation of the building. There are rumors that the fire was caused by an explosion of some sort--"

"You'd better believe it, lady," I muttered at the radio.

"--not been confirmed or denied. The fire at Takada is the fourth major fire that has occurred in Tokyo today."

My eyes got wide. "Oh shit...Heero, are you listening to this?"

"The other three fires, one on the other side of the Tokyo shopping district and two in the residential area located to the west of the military base, are, like this one, still under investigation."

There was a scraping noise as Heero pushed his chair back. I felt rather than heard him come up to stand behind me.

"--state that there is no probable natural cause for the fires and arson is under investigation." The announcer paused. "In other news--"

I reached out and turned the radio off. Shit. "This isn't good." I finally said. "Four fires. No probable natural cause. Arson investigations. This is starting to get a little too interesting." I looked up at Heero, who was being as impassive as ever.

"We have other concerns now," he said. "I just received a transmission. We have a mission tomorrow--all of us." 


	9. Chapter 9

Pyractomena Borealis Part IX

Heero must have been using the word "tomorrow" loosely when he told me about the mission, because it wasn't even quite midnight when a rough, warm hand on my shoulder shook me awake. I'd been having a really weird dream, where I was walking up and down the aisles of the local grocery store, searching desperately for a jar of crunchy peanut butter, while everything they had was smooth. I wasn't all that upset about being woken up. I'd gotten a good four hours of sleep from the time Heero had finished briefing us all on the mission until now, so I couldn't complain. Heero probably hadn't gotten any sleep at all. Not that it ever seemed to bother him. Unlike us mere mortals, the perfect soldier didn't need to take such petty things as naps.

Okay, so maybe I was just a teensy bit grouchy about being woken up, weird dream or no. So sue me.

As soon as Heero saw I was awake and not just faking it like I've been known to do all too often, he released my shoulder and moved away. Light trickling into the room through a crack in the curtains gave me just enough illumination to see by; I've got pretty good night vision. In the watery light, everything looked washed out and grainy, like an old black and white photograph. Heero's back seemed to glow palely. As he reached down to retrieve his shirt from the floor where it lay in a dull, dark pile, the muscles across his back rippled in a pattern of complex shadows, smoothly playing across his luminous skin, distracting me from thoughts of a mission for one long, stomach clenching minute.

Thank God for three things--Heero put his shirt on quickly to end my little test of self control before it could really get started, he didn't look back at me until he was done getting dressed, and by the time he did, I'd managed to paste a faintly human expression on my face and stop drooling overtly.

Heero raised an eyebrow at me, and I scrambled out of bed, hastily turning my back and slipping my own shirt on, leaving it untucked for once. Heero didn't need to know exactly how awake I was feeling. I was pretty sure that I was blushing--my face felt so hot that I was waiting for it to melt and run off onto the floor. I hoped to hell that the dark was hiding it. I did not want to deal with this right now. I had a mission to think about.

After a moment of consideration, I strapped my shoulder rig on and retrieved the Browning from its home under my mattress. There was no real reason for me to take the gun on this mission, since there was an almost zero chance that I would be out of Deathscythe's cockpit as anything other than a corpse during it. The almost is what always gets me, though. In my opinion, it's better to have the gun and not need it...because the one time you leave it behind is the time that you will spend the rest of your life cursing yourself for not bringing it along.

I knew this from personal experience.

Once I got myself all strapped together, Heero jerked his head toward the door. I headed out without even bothering to nod. All of us had agreed long ago that when we went on these night missions, silence was of the utmost importance when we were trying to get out to our Gundams. I never could figure out teachers managed it, but old professors who couldn't hear dynamite going off right underneath them could somehow hear a student two buildings away sneaking out of his room.

Trowa and Quatre were waiting for us just outside of the second set of dormitory doors. The light was only slightly brighter outside; thick clouds cloaked the entire sky, completely covering the moon and allowing only three or four stars to peek through. In the dim light, Quatre looked like a ghost, pale skin and hair, only his face and his hands visible with everything else covered by a dark flight suit. His eyes were very wide, but I knew better than to think he was scared. Quatre had really bad night vision; he was too used to his deserts, where even the light of the stars would reflect up from the sands and illuminate everything brightly enough to see. Normally on night missions, one of us had to lead him to where the Gundams were hidden because until he was in Sandrock's cockpit, he was as blind as a bat minus the sonar.

I could remember one of the few times we'd actually shared a dorm room, when I'd first gotten to know him. He'd been trying to find something in the middle of the night, but hadn't wanted to wake me up, so he'd left all of the lights out. He'd walked into the shower and turned it on, thinking that the on/off faucet was a doorknob. After I'd finally managed to stop laughing and had changed my underwear, I promised him that I'd never mention it again. I was keeping pretty good on the promise...I only reminded him of it three or four times--a week.

Everyone thinks that Quatre's really nice. They've obviously never had him try to kill them.

As soon as we were a safe distance from the dorms, we all broke into a run at nearly the same instant. Sheer force of habit. We had had to do this often enough in the last year and a half that everything was reflex; we all had the same pace, a ground eating lope that somehow got us everywhere fairly fast without making us too out of breath, a pace we could keep up for miles if necessary. We all wore the same dark flight suits, a mottle of dark green, blue, and black. Most of our missions were night missions.

The Gundams weren't hidden too far away, only about two miles into the woods that stood conveniently close to the school. I can't say I was happy about the little run to get to them, though. I never liked the deep woods at night to begin with, and I liked them even less after the little incident with Kalin six months ago. Still, it wasn't too bad of a run. For most of the way to the Gundams' hiding place we were on well defined hiking paths that were clear of overhanging branches and free of slippery grass.

We fell neatly into a single file line, since the path wasn't really wide enough for more than one person at a time. As always, Heero took the lead and I took second place, since I had the best night vision in the group next to him, and I was the only one that could see him really well. At night, nearly black hair and a dark flight suit do not an easy person to follow make. Quatre was in line behind me, watching the white hair tie that I'd purposefully put in my braid for him. It was pretty much the only thing he was able to see on these night treks, just a little white line bouncing up and down as my braid flapped behind me. I had no idea how he managed not to get motion sick at moments like these. Trowa was close on his tail; he was the only one out of all of us that was graceful enough to catch Quatre and pull him back to his feet without breaking stride. Last, of course, was Wufei. He was the best rearguard I'd ever met, which was saying a lot after working with some of Howard's people. I had no idea how he did it, but his hearing and sense of smell were frighteningly acute at times, and his night vision was nearly as good as mine. He always seemed to know if opposition was coming before anyone else.

After nearly twenty minutes of running, I was only just starting to feel the strain. The dark blob ahead of me that was Heero made an abrupt turn off the path, leaping over a tangle of roots. Without even thinking about it, I followed him, my braid whipping around in a wide arc as I jumped over the roots as well, hitting the ground running. There was an odd scuffling sound behind me, and then silence again; Quatre must not have noticed me jumping and tripped over the roots...but Trowa would have gotten him back on his feet almost immediately, so no problem. A bare instant later, we broke out of the cover of the trees and were suddenly running up the side of a pretty steep grassy hill. We were almost there.

In only a few seconds, we were over the crest of the hill and on flat ground. Not a hundred meters away, I could see the dark, oddly shaped bulges of our camo-net covered Gundams. /Oi, Deathscythe/ I just thought, since I knew better than to make a sound until we were mounted up/Ready for an adventure/

"T-minus six hours and five minutes to destination," Heero said expressionlessly over the general comlink.

He was always the first one ready to go. I never could figure out how he did it. I always wondered if he had one of those little keychain remote things to start Wing like they had for cars. Nah. There was a hiss of air as I finished securing the hatch behind me before I climbed into my own personal little throne of destruction and started strapping myself down. I had to make sure to pull everything tight; the one time I'd been too sloppy about it, I'd gotten thrown around the cockpit a bit in a fight. It had taken almost a week to clean up all the blood.

"Confirmed," Quatre's voice came through, slightly fuzzy with static. He'd proven time and again that he was a better tactician than even Heero, so he normally took over once we were ready to go. Heero didn't seem to have a problem with it, and he normally kept himself busy running through the mission logistics and keeping us all up to date on everything. "Duo and Wufei, take point. Heero, you're eye in the sky. Trowa and I will give you one minute and fifteen seconds to get fully operational, then a five minute lead. Thirty minutes before we reach the target destination, we'll regroup. Until then, let's keep voice traffic to a minimum." Business as usual. Deathscythe, Shenlon, and Wing were all faster than Sandrock and Heavyarms, so we usually took the scout positions.

"Roger that," I said, clicking the send channel of the voice commlink off. I heard a crackle, then Heero's 'Copy' and Wufei's 'Affirmative.' My right hand pulled the last strap over my thighs tight even as I started my Gundam's start sequence with the left. There was an immediate, low rumble, one that I could feel in my jawbone rather than hear as the engines that moved Deathscythe's arms and legs started to cycle up. Those had to be started first; they took longer than the computer systems did to boot. Speaking of the computer systems...the HUDs around the cockpit lit up, each displaying a blinking green cursor for a moment before commands started to scroll across them. Diagnostics didn't come up with anything wrong in the computer systems, hydraulics, or the reactor, so next thing I knew, the screens were filled with the diagrams I was used to seeing; radar, diagnostic diagram of Deathscythe, and so on and so on.

73 seconds later, Deathscythe was on its feet and moving to take left point. Radar showed that Wing was already in the air, and I could see Shenlon standing up on my visual display. Right on time. I set the coordinates for the ground zero that the mads had given us in the mission briefing and then sat back to relax as the autopilot took over.

That's the thing that always got me about missions...the hurry up and wait part. Drives me nuts. Not that I have a short attention span or something. I just don't like being bored...and for the most part, the travel time to get to the battleground is just that--boring.

Still, this mission was important enough that I wasn't going to complain. The mads had intercepted an Oz transmission last night, and had managed to confirm that it was without a doubt real, apparently, since they wouldn't have requested us all to go out otherwise. Oz was sending a shipment of mobile suits into the Tokyo base before dawn this morning. Since Tokyo had the best surface to space facilities, it was pretty damn obvious that they were meant to get shipped off into space...which also meant that as they were, they wouldn't be able to fight on the ground, even if the pilots were with the shipment. The area it was going through as it headed for Tokyo was almost completely uninhabited, and on the side of the city furthest from the base. It was a perfect time to save ourselves and the colonies a lot of grief later, as well as set Oz back an absolutely wonderful amount by destroying nearly a year of their work in one fell swoop.

And besides, the intelligence indicated that the mobile suit of a very high ranking commander would be in the shipment as well.

I glanced at the time up at the corner of one of my HUDs. Five hours, fifty three minutes. The flat, featureless lines of rice paddy after rice paddy stretched out in front of me, glowing green and yellow in the infrared overdisplay I had on for dark run missions.

Something bright orange and red darted across my screen. Too small to behuman, it was probably something like a dog.

It was going to be a long wait.

"I don't like this," Wufei's voice was almost a hiss, a soft whisper distorted by static." Even in the tiny thumbnail of him that I had up on the comm HUD, he didn't look happy.

As I scanned the horizon, I had to admit, I didn't like it either. It was growing progressively lighter in the east by the second; dawn was coming pretty early these days...but then again, we'd been searching the area for nearly ten minutes.

Military shipments were never late. It just didn't happen.

Even worse than the light on the horizon was the mist that had come rolling in from God knows where, probably off of all the rice paddies. I'd had to turn the infrared on my video HUD off, which I didn't like one bit. I hadn't had much of a choice, though. The heavy, warm fog was obscuring everything with a red and orange haze on the enhanced mode, even worse than the twisting grey mass cloaked everything in pure visual.

"We wait," Heero said shortly, his voice sour. "We're still in our time range, abort will not be allowed for another twenty minutes."

"All the same, I have a bad feeling about this," Quatre said softly. Everyone was speaking in hushed tones, even me, despite the fact that no one would be able to even hear us screaming through half meter thick plates of Gundanium armor.

All of a sudden, it wasn't a terribly comforting thought.

The tiny thumbnail picture of Quatre rubbed its forehead. It could have been video jitter, since transmissions were becoming more and more uncertain as the humidity continued to rise, but his hand looked like it was shaking slightly. "I have a very bad feeling about this." His voice melted into a static hiss, snow dancing across the entire video screen. The pattern of it wasn't regular enough to be a jamming signal. We were ok. I had to keep telling myself that. My stomach suddenly felt like I'd swallowed a block of ice.

"I'm losing radar and comm links," Trowa said quietly. It was the first time he'd spoken in the entire mission, and it was hard to make out what he was saying above all of the back noise.

"You're fine," I said. "I can still see you, co-ordinates twelve alpha nine, seven gamma three." I could hear the others chiming in, confirming my reading.

"It's nice to know I s--" His voice faded completely into static for a moment before coming back. "--exist. However, the problem is--" More static crackle, "--n't see anyone." His picture blurred. "--ver."

"What?" I glanced down at my on radar HUD. It was losing coherency, fading out. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. When I looked back up, Trowa's picture was gone from my comm display. "Whoa, wait a sec. Guys, where the hell did Trowa go?"

"I think he said he was rebooting his systems. Maybe he thought they weren't talking properly to the hardware." Wufei said.

Quatre's voice broke in. He was doing his best not to sound concerned, and failing miserably. "I told him to move in to where he could see us on visual."

Despite the fact that I could feel sweat dripping down my forehead, a result of all of the hot, humid air that Deathscythe's intake system was bringing in, I shivered. "Quatre, humor me. Let's all move into visual range, ok?" I knew I was worrying over nothing. Duo the old grandma. That's me. I hope.

There was a low rumble above me, and the fog stirred, then shredded into a thousand tiny pieces as Wing roared over the valley not twentyfive meters above me. "Thanks Heero." I said, trying to keep the relief out of my voice. "Visual confirmation on Heero." The fog stirred again, close to the ground and I saw a shadow move in, barely identifiable as Gundam shaped.

"I have visual on you, Duo," Quatre said. "Wufei?"

Nothing but static hiss.

"Wu-man?" I glanced at the comm HUD. Wufei was gone. Oh shit. I hit the frequency scan button, hoping that Wufei had just flipped to a different channel. The computer came up empty. "We're missing Wufei." My voice sounded way too calm to my own ears.

Quatre sounded grim. "I know...wait, I think I see him. I'm getting vi--" his transmission broke up for a second. "--shape in the fog--" The shadow that was Sandrock moved away from me. "--ckup--" Static hiss.

"Quatre?" My grip on Deathscythe's sticks suddenly tightened, and I did an abrupt direction change that slammed me against my safety harness. "Q-man, damnit, talk to me. Heero, do you have visual?"

"--ativ--"

Heero got cut off by something worse than a static hiss. "--USH! P--" Quatre's voice suddenly screamed through the comm link. For an instant, I could see the picture of him on my screen. "--OUT! PULL OUT!" It vanished, leaving nothing but static and silence in its wake.

"Shit!" I yelled. I hit the accelerator on one of the control panels and was rewarded by the engines powering Deathscythe's leg servos letting out a high pitched whine. The Gundam obediently broke into a run, jerking me back hard against my seat. "Heero! Last known position!" I freed my hand from the Gundam's controls long enough to tap his picture, making it full screen. "Respond, God damnit!"

"--peat--" His picture fuzzed out. "--umber of opponents, assista--"

"HEERO!" The fog to my side was glowing green, reflecting the light of the thermal scythe. I couldn't see a goddamn thing, just a wall of blank fog. "Someone answer me..."

The only answer was the ground beneath Deathscythe suddenly jumping. For a minute, I thought it was an earthquake as the gyros in the Gundam's legs fought to keep me upright. There weren't any aftershocks, though. Just one big jerk, and it was done.

Like something had hit the ground nearby.

Something big.

Something Gundam-sized.

"HEERO, ANSWER ME!" I frantically hit scan again as my own radar HUD fuzzed out completely, becoming nothing but a green haze on the monitor.

For an instant, a picture crossed with lines of static jumped onto the comm HUD. It was Heero, his eyes wide and dilated so much that all you could see was black. His mouth was open like he was yelling something, and there was blood streaming from his nose and running down his forehead. Something nearby him exploded in a burst of bright white magnesium light...

Static.

"NO!" I was screaming. I could feel it, feel my throat becoming raw.

This was not happening. This was supposed to be a cakewalk, a fucking cakewalk.

"Calm down," I whispered. "Come on, you've got to get out of here. Remember the mission. Remember the mission. Someone has to get out so they can do clean up."

I couldn't. No. I couldn't leave them. But I had to. But I couldn't.

Even while I was caught in indecision, my instincts knew what to do. Deathscythe was taking slow, careful steps back. Even if Duo the person couldn't figure out what the hell needed to be done, Duo the soldier knew the score. "Calm down," I whispered.

I was calm. I was Duo, the Gundam pilot. Pilots don't panic in battle, no matter how big the shit hits the fan.

I transferred the thermal scythe to one hand, freeing the buster shield up on the other. The thermal blade at its tip powered up, adding another glow to the fog. "You want a piece of Shinigami, you bastards? COME GET SOME!" I yelled out into the general comm frequency.

Silence.

Something hit me from behind, slamming me against my harness and causing Deathscythe to stumble, fighting to maintain balance. I wrestled with the controls, forcing the Gundam to turn and bringing the scythe to bear even as the gyros were fighting just to keep me upright. I couldn't see anything, just a bank of swirling grey fog. And a chain. There was a fucking chain made of black metal, reaching out of the fog, wrapped around Deathscythe's left arm.

"What the hell are you bastards playing at?" I snarled. A sweep of the scythe sliced easily through the chain, and it dropped back into the fog. "COME OUT HERE AND FIGHT, DAMN YOU!"

A part of me was laughing, thinking how ridiculous it was. Me, the master of espionage, pissed off beyond belief because someone wouldn't blow their cover and fight me straight up.

I didn't give a shit. Better pissed than pissing my pants. Missions didn't happen like this.

There was another jerk, and I turned with it, ready to slice through the chain that had suddenly wound itself around my left leg. Except my right arm, the one with the scythe, couldn't move. There was another chain wrapped securely around it. "DAMNIT!"

Something metallic clanged against Deathscythe's hull, and I was pulled abruptly backwards. All I had time to say was "Oh shit..." before we hit the ground. My head met the back of the pilot's seat, and everything was dark for a second. When I opened my eyes again, I tasted blood, and there was something dripping in my eyes that I'd lay two to one odds wasn't cherry kool-aide. The cockpit was a confused jumble of static and light as one by one, the HUDs started coming back up.

After a short struggle, I had myself unstrapped, and I kicked the visual HUD sharply. It snapped into life, showing the same old view of grey fog. That didn't matter. I was doing turtle belly-up on the sand, and I was secured down. I was fucked.

For some reason, the entire situation had me feeling nothing. My emotions had retreated, whimpering, into their corner, and all that was left was Duo the soldier, Duo the pilot. Thank God he knew what the hell he was doing.

One hand hit the cycle button for the cockpit's hatch, while I reached for the self destruct device with the other.

Light flared up on the visual display, and I hesitated for a moment. Suddenly going cold all over again. Everywhere in the fog, yellow lights were flaring up, hanging like jewels scattered over grey silk.

Eyes. They looked like fucking eyes. Hundreds and hundreds of pairs.

Something slammed into the cockpit, throwing me away from the self destruct device. Things blacked out again for a split second.

I opened my eyes. My cheek hurt, stung like all hell. In front of my eyes, I could see a long, thin line speared through one side of the cockpit. It took a moment to register. A harpoon. One edge had cut into my cheek, right under my eye. This couldn't be happening. Things did not just go through Gundanium armor.

Only one thing mattered. I reached toward the self-destruct device again, my fingers seeming to stretch impossibly long and thin in front of me.

There was a hiss, and then the cockpit was flooded with green gas, filling my head with a sick, cloyingly sweet stench.

Everything went dark.

Mine, and Duo's little MST3K homage. Previously (if I remember correctly ;;;) Duo has referred to the scientists as "the mad scientists." That gets shortened to "the mads" which is what Mike/Joel call Dr. Forrester and Tv's Frank. :) 


	10. Chapter 10

Pyractomena Borealis Part X

Something was tickling my nose. I snorted softly, and the annoying bit of whatever-the-hell-it-was retreated for just a second before I inhaled and sucked it back into my nostril. Damnit. I didn't want to wake up. I was warm, I felt safe, and better yet, I had no idea who the hell I was or if I was supposed to be doing anything. Some days, the amnesia of sleep can be a gift from God. I had a feeling that this day had probably been one of them, but I couldn't remember, which was the entire point.

Except the damn something-or-other was still tickling my nose. Presented with no other choices, I crawled my way back toward consciousness. Sensations started to slowly creep into my field of attention. I was laying on my side. There was something smooth and slightly bumpy under my right cheek. My left cheek felt stiff, and ached dully, as did the side of my head. The inside of my eyelids was grey, so it was light.

"Duo," someone said.

So that's who I was. It explained a lot. The image of a harpoon made of black metal, long and impossibly thin, slicing through the cockpit of my Gundam ran across my mind.

Damnit, I didn't want to be Duo. It sucked to be him.

I opened my eyes a crack and found myself looking at a smooth expanse of shiny fabric the color of mint ice cream. Gold threads crawled across the surface in a pattern that probably would have looked like something if I had been observing it from the top rather than from the side.

"Duo?" There was no mistaking that voice. It was Quatre, and he sounded like he was about to leap into full-blown worried mother hen mode.

"Quatre," I said very carefully around the suddenly sharp pain lancing across the side of my face, "I don't suppose there's any chance that if I pretend to be asleep, you'll just go away, is there?"

Relief blossomed in his voice. "Unfortunately, no," he said, half laughing.

"Then would you be offended if I just told you to fuck off?"

This time, he did a full blown laugh. "Quite possibly."

"Well shit. I tried." I let out an exaggerated sigh. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Heero, Wufei, and Trowa, and a weight that I hadn't even really noticed until now suddenly lifted off my chest. Still, I couldn't help but wonder how I was managing to be so damn calm. Then again, I was apparently alive and so was everyone else. We'd made it out of worse situations before. Besides, there wouldn't be much point in freaking out, and it's damn hard to think of how to haul your ass out of trouble if your ulcers are acting up.

"Do you feel alright?" Quatre asked. He was sitting back on his heels in front of me, peering worriedly at me.

I sat up with a soft groan and stretched gingerly. My shoulder rig was missing, but I'd kind of been expecting that. I was betting that I had an exact copy of my safety harness imprinted on my body in black and blue. "Argh," I said intelligently. "Not too bad, all things considered. I guess. No nausea, wooziness, or anything else you'd normally expect out of sleeping gas." I gingerly reached up to touch the side of my face. My skin was crusty with streaks of dried blood, as was my hair, and I could feel a thick line of it right under my eye. Judging by the size of the cut, it was pretty surprising that it had managed to close up and stop bleeding without stitches.

"You looks like someone attacked you with a brush full of dark red paint." Quatre reached out and gently touched my cheek. Strangely enough, the pain immediately retreated under his soothing touch. Then again, it's hard to be anything but serene around Quatre; he's just got that kind of aura around him. "Deep, but very clean," he commented. "It's thin enough that you probably won't get too bad of a scar out of it. What happened?"

"To be truthful, I'm not really that sure. Things were kind of jumbled at that point, but I thought a...harpoon got speared through my cockpit. It was so close that it sliced right into me, and then I got gassed." I shrugged. "You remember anything like that?"

Quatre shrugged in return. "Not really, but things happened very fast. One minute, I was calling for retreat, and then Sandrock got slammed into the ground and I lost consciousness."

"I saw something," Wufei said. "It may have been something similar to a harpoon...but it didn't go through my cockpit. Only the point entered."

"Huh." I leaned back against the back of the couch I was on. "Did anyone see," I hesitated for a moment, not sure if it had been real or just a pain induced hallucination. Nah, it never hurt to ask. Right. "yellow eyes in the fog?"

Silence.

Ok, maybe asking hadn't been such a great idea. "Never mind."

Quatre gave me one last concerned look, then backed up a couple of steps to sit down next to Trowa on a light blue couch with green vines embroidered on the armrests. I gave the room we were all in the quick once over. I hadn't seen anything so tastefully and...eclectically decorated with antiques since I'd done a class field trip to an old French Palace. The wallpaper was off white with a faint gold pattern, and the carpet was a deep green, covered with oriental rugs. There were oil paintings and intricate tapestries hanging on the walls. All of the furniture was rich, dark wood and what looked like embroidered satin. The whole room looked like something that belonged in a museum...or a dollhouse. Wufei sat on a couch, too, and Heero had claimed the only non-couch piece of furniture in the room, a little writing desk that was pushed up against one wall.

"So now what?" I asked.

Heero shrugged. "Wait, like the rest of us have been."

"At least you don't have to listen to yourself snore," Wufei said dryly.

I sneered delicately. "Fine words from a man sitting on a pink couch." As nonchalantly as possible, I eyed my own couch. The gold embroidery on it turned out to be stylized heraldic eagles. Considering that not only was Wufei's couch pink, it had roses on it, I definitely had the high ground as far as furniture went.

Wufei snorted. "Idiot."

I stuck my tongue out at him. Immaturity is great stress relief. "So how long have we been here, anyway? And how long was I out?"

"I woke up an hour ago." Trowa said quietly, tilting his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. "I was the first one to wake. Before that, there's no way of telling. Several hours, at least, quite possibly longer."

"And no sign of our host or hosts at all, right?"

Trowa shrugged in response. I took it as a no.

"The room is completely secure," Heero said. His voice sounded a little more nasal than usual, probably because his nose had swelled up to nearly twice its normal size and was a positively hideous shade of nasty green and yellow, the color a really bad bruise gets when it's healing. When Wing had crashed, part of the control panel must have leapt up and bit him or something. He still had streaks of dried blood on his forehead and crusted around one nostril, and he had a rakish raccoon look going, courtesy of two black eyes. It was odd to see his bruises already fading, but then again, we might have been out for a while. Be that as it may, he was a sight and a half. None of us were exactly looking our best, really. "No egress possible through anything but the doors, and there's no budging them. I have no doubts that we're being monitored, as well."

I nodded. "So we wait." None of us wanted to talk much more--we were pretty sure we were being watched, and it was never a good idea to give away more than necessary. Besides, it was obvious to all of us that we'd be alive for a least a while longer. Whoever had caught us had gone to a lot of trouble to capture us alive and relatively unharmed. It was doubtful that they'd kill us offhand, but then again, that opened up all sorts of unpleasant possibilities. Still, we'd all learned a while back to stay relaxed about the possibility of dying or worse.

When you work closely with Death, or, hell, you ARE Death, it just doesn't make sense to worry.

So it was just back to waiting.

I passed the time by picking at a loose thread in my couch's embroidery, incidentally the same one that had been attacking my nose. Fortunately for the couch, we didn't have to wait too long. I'd managed to unravel the wing of one of the embroidered eagles when the huge double doors opened.

All of us were on our feet immediately, reaching for guns that we'd been relieved of while unconscious.

"Good evening," the man who had opened the doors said. Even as I was still groping helplessly for the gun I didn't have, I couldn't help but stare at him. To go with the theme of the room, he was dressed like a palace guard. He looked like something out of a film I'd once seen in a history class about the last Czar in Russia. Gold braid covered the front of his ocean blue jacket, looping around both arms. Really, the jacket was a lot more impressive than the guy wearing it. He was only a few inches taller than me, and had mousy brown hair cut neatly short, a snub nose, and muddled hazel eyes.

Definitely not the towering, impressive figure you'd expect out of a vampire.

Then again, this guy wasn't exactly a towering, impressive example of vampire-hood to start with. He couldn't have been more than 300 years old, and he was a pretty weak 300 years old at that. After what I'd been dealing with, he was almost laughable. Sure, I still wouldn't want to arm wrestle him, but in a magical pissing contest, I'd be able to eat him for breakfast.

I hoped.

"My name is Ivan," the vampire continued after a moment. There was only a trace of an accent in his light tenor voice, but logically enough, it sounded Russian. "I have been charged by the Master of Tokyo to bid you welcome, and to apologize for the less than civilized manner in which we were forced to deliver your invitations." He bowed and straightened in one fluid motion. While he might not have been impressive as a vampire, there was an absolute confidence in the way he moved and even the way that he wore his uniform like a second skin that practically screamed "soldier." In life, he would have been a force to be reckoned with. I had a feeling that becoming a vampire had only made it worse. There went my misplaced feeling of confidence.

Wufei coughed softly. "It would have been nice," he said, "If your master had simply chosen to send a card."

Ivan didn't even twitch. "Unfortunately, my Master's time is at a premium, and it was not feasible to deal with the loss your refusal would have caused. Once again, I extend the apology. Now, if you will follow me, the Master wishes to speak with you face to face." He smiled, and it was almost like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, open and honest in the extreme. This guy wasn't acting like any vampire I'd ever met...not that I'd met a lot of them.

I gave Quatre a look. He shook his head almost imperceptibly at me. I got the hint. Refusing wouldn't be the best idea, since the vampire was at least being polite for now.

Besides, if we went along with it, we might actually get a clue as to what the hell was going on.

No one was saying anything, and Ivan was just standing there with the unending patience of the dead, so I stepped up to bat. "Lead the way, Ivan."

"Thank you." In one motion, he turned and started walking. With a shrug at the rest of the guys, I followed him and they all fell into line behind me. I heard the doors swing shut a moment later.

The hallway pretty much matched the room. Pleasantly lit, nice thick, sound-eating carpet, and more oil paintings on the walls. It seemed to stretch on forever, and after five minutes of endless, still scenes of women washing clothes and men hunting, it was either talk or go crazy for me.

"So, Ivan," I said, "how long have you been working for the Master of Tokyo?"

Ivan actually hesitated for a split second before taking his next step, like he was shocked that anyone would want to talk to him. I was pretty shocked that I'd actually want to talk to a vampire, myself. "I've been with the Master for the last hundred years," he said.

"Is your Master a good guy?"

Once again, there was a hesitation, and then Ivan nodded to himself. "The Master is a good master," he said, "though I am sure that my definition of good and yours are quite different. But the Master is not needlessly cruel, and does not torture lesser beings for diversion or fun." He shrugged. "There is no one else I would rather serve in all the world."

That sounded like just about the best recommendation you could get out of a vampire.

"Huh," I said, doing the best I could to ignore the disapproval I felt radiating off of Heero behind me. "I've got another question."

"Sir." The hallway split. Ivan chose the right hand fork, which sloped downward.

"I don't suppose you were in on capturing us, were you?"

Ivan's neutral expression twitched into surprise for a moment before smoothing back into blankness. It was nice to see proof that not all vampires were professional poker players. Ivan had probably been an open book when he was alive. "Actually, I was honored to be included in that particular activity," he said carefully.

"Great." I gave him my best winning smile. "Mind sharing with our viewers at home how you did it?"

Ivan raised an eyebrow at me, then actually smiled, a real, genuine expression that seemed somehow out of place on the face of an undead blood sucker. "I wouldn't be much of a soldier if I told you that, would I?" he asked.

"It was worth a try." I shrugged. Behind me, someone snorted. It sounded suspiciously like Heero.

"It always is," Ivan said quietly. Then, without so much as a word of warning, he stopped in the middle of the hall. All that saved me from running into his back was an undignified little sidestep that instead caused me to run into an end table that had a blue and white Chinese vase on it. Without looking, Ivan reached out and caught the vase right before it fell over, gently restoring it to its spot in the exact center of the table. "We have arrived," he said.

I glanced at the massive doors that stood in front of us, made of dark red mahogany that almost looked like old blood and covered with intricate carvings of stylized eagles and wolves. There were actually the traditional, old style door knockers, one on each door, an eagle and a wolf's head, each with a ring in its mouth.

"Before I open the doors," Ivan said softly, "I will give you some advice, as one soldier to another. Do not attempt to be anything other than open and honest with the Master." He glanced back at me, a strange, very inhuman light in his eyes. "We can smell it when humans lie."

Somehow, a flippant comment just didn't seem appropriate. "Thank you," I said, nodding.

Ivan stepped forward and pushed the massive doors. They swung soundlessly back on well oiled hinges.

Nothing could have prepared me for what lay beyond. Really, I should have been expecting it, but somehow, it didn't feel like a classic vampire movie setup. The light of the hallway simply stopped at the room's threshold, as if afraid to enter. In the gloom, I could make out an enormous staircase of pale marble, leading up into eternity. The only other decoration were shadowy banners that looked almost like wisps of fog, hanging down from a darkness deep enough to drown in that had to be hiding a ceiling somewhere. It looked almost like a painting, not even a breath of air stirring one of the thin pieces of cloth.

The room was by no means still, though. Even though I couldn't see it, I could FEEL things moving through the room, restlessly circling around us, just outside of the pale light by the doorway. Instinctively, all of us took a step closer to each other, tightening the group up.

Ivan stepped to the side. A ghost of pale violet mist lit his eyes, completely washing away any chance I could have had of thinking of him as human. "The Master waits for you at the top of the stairs."

I took a step forward, and the guys followed. The doors shut themselves behind us, plunging us into almost complete darkness while our eyes fought to adjust. I took another tentative step, then stopped, transfixed.

Eyes...there were hundreds of them, all around us, at different heights, peering at us from behind the banners or sitting out in the darkness. They all seemed to come with their own amber, purely internal glow, resting like stars in the darkness.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and my skin suddenly felt too small for my body. It was the eyes in the fog, multiplied a hundred times, and a hell of a lot closer.

A shape and a pair of eyes detached themselves from the darkness for just a moment, crossing in front of me.

It was a wolf, the biggest wolf I'd ever seen in my entire life. Its shoulder would probably come up to my waist, but I sincerely hoped it wouldn't come close enough to test that theory. It disappeared into the darkness, never once looking away.

I'd never seen an animal with eyes like that. It was like it somehow knew everything that I was thinking, and it found my cognitive processes sadly wanting. It was full of intelligence, malevolent and ancient.

"You do not need to fear anything," Ivan said quietly. "They are only curious, and would not think of harming you. Please, go up the stairs. Do not keep the Master waiting."

I was caught between wanting to believe Ivan and refusing to take a step further because I was too scared of the wolves. Another massive shadow passed through the bare edges of the light, and I came to the conclusion that I didn't have much of a choice. I had a feeling that Ivan was wrong in saying that the wolves wouldn't think to hurt us.

So it was up the stairs. The climb never seemed to end, and pretty soon, I was starting to feel a little worn out, and my knees were hurting. I still couldn't see a ceiling, or walls, and the floor retreated into darkness pretty quickly as well, leaving us with just the stairs, and each other. Ivan had stayed at the bottom.

After what seemed like an eternity, the stairs finally ended in an enormous, flat platform of the same white marble. There was dim, sourceless light there, though it seemed really bright when compared to the darkness below. The filmy stuff that had hung down in streamers before now obscured everything, hanging down from the ceiling in a veritable maze. I could see a dais vaguely through it, though, with a massive throne at the top, and a shape in it.

The Master of Tokyo.

The air felt heavy and electric against my skin, and it was everything I could do to keep from scratching my arms and hands raw. It rolled across me in waves, and I wasn't sure if it felt good or it just scared me. What I did know if that I was feeling just a fraction of the Master's power. This vampire was so massively old that it made my teeth ache. It leaked energy so heavily that it almost made my hair stand on end with each slow beat of its heart, and it wasn't even doing it consciously.

It was like listening to God breathe.

The only thing that kept me from turning tail and running my ass down the stairs was the other pilots at my back. Safety in numbers. Right.

Slowly, I walked toward the dais, somehow never touching the tangle of translucent fabric. I could see indistinct shapes beyond the dais; they could have been people, were probably vampires. Whatever energy they gave off was drowned out by the Master of Tokyo.

I stubbed the toe of my boot against the bottom step of the dais. Somehow, I really didn't want to look up at the source of all the power, but I didn't seem to have a choice. My gaze was drawn inexorably upward. Halfway up the steps, a woman lounged, her brown hair pulled into two tight braids. She was wearing almost nothing, just a white leather bustier and shorts. Her eyes were like the wolves', golden amber, glowing, and full of ancient knowledge.

She was only a stop on the way, a pause before my gaze continued its slow, horrified journey to the top.

Behind me, I heard Wufei whisper under his breath. It sounded like a curse. That Master of Tokyo rose, smiling kindly. "Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton, Chang Wufei, and Quatre Raberba Winner...it's an honor to meet you at last."

"Hail Mary, full of grace..." I heard myself say hollowly, as if from a thousand years away. I recognized the Master of Tokyo, knew him from hundreds of newscasts and missions.

The commander of Oz and our mortal enemy.

Treize Kushrenada.

We were in bigger trouble than I had ever imagined. 


	11. Chapter 11

Pyractomena Borealis Part XI

Treize smiled beatifically down at me without showing even the slightest hint of fang. Who did he think he was kidding, anyway? Anyone with the psychic sense of a lime would know he was a vampire, for God's sake. I guess old habits died hard...and who knew how old this particular one was. "Really, Mr. Maxwell, that's unnecessary. Is this all that much of a shock?"

My heart was beating fast, like I'd just finished running a race. Sudden adrenaline surges tend to do that to a person. /Stop that/ I mentally told my body. "Of course not," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. Point for quick recovery, go me.

"Now, now...can't we all just at least try to be truthful?" He raised an eyebrow delicately.

Shit. Ivan had said that vampires could smell it when we lied. He hadn't been joking...this was going to make bluffing very difficult. "Alright," I said evenly, "I guess maybe I am a little surprised. I would have thought you'd be busy enough trying to take over the known universe without this whole 'King of the Undead' thing going on as well."

"King of the Undead?" Treize smiled. "I like that. You have a good sense of humor, Mr. Maxwell." He chuckled softly as he sat back down, every motion stately, like an emperor. The parallel wasn't lost on me. His throne was unadorned, of the same marble that the steps were made of.

I licked my suddenly dry lips, feeling like a mouse caught in front of a snake. "What do you want with us?" I asked. It was the only thing I could think of.

"You're very direct," Treize said. "I like that. Your lives are too short to waste time on pleasantries."

Somehow, I really did not like what that seemed to imply.

"Do you know what you are?" Treize asked.

I had to doubt that he was talking about me being a Gundam Pilot. "I'm a necromancer."

"Very good. Do you know how rare that is?"

For some reason, the tone of voice reminded me of how one of my math teachers had always sounded when he was leading a particularly slow student to the solution of a problem. I didn't like it. With a great deal of effort, I swallowed the bluff that had instantly leapt to my tongue. "No," I said through gritted teeth.

"Those with even the smallest hint of the talent are so rare that they come only two or three in a century," Treize said. "One as powerful as you may come along only once in a millenium, if that."

"Isn't that special," I said, throttling my sudden surge of curiosity. Curiosity killed the Gundam pilot, and man would that suck.

"You call to the dead with a strong, beautiful voice. Even I feel the pull." His voice was soft, soothing, rolling over me in a warm wave. My stomach stopped clenching and relaxed. "There is much that you could learn." I found myself unaccountably wanting to trust Treize...all I had to do was listen, and things would make sense.

What the hell? Shinigami doesn't trust anyone on a first meeting, least of all a walking, talking nightmare. "Stop that," I said, clenching my hands into fists. My fingernails pressed sharply into my palms, the little pains clearing away some of the haze that Treize's voice had put in my mind.

"Stop what?" he sounded amused.

The texture of the air suddenly changed, and I felt it pressing me down toward the ground, threatening to make my knees buckle. Even more frightening, though, I felt like Treize was looking right through me, seeing everything that I had ever thought or felt. "Stop it!" I shouted, fighting to stay upright. "Get the hell out of my head!"

Treize began to laugh, and suddenly, the air returned to its normal density. I stumbled and fell back, only a quick catch by Trowa saving me from falling on my ass. He pushed me back upright, only letting go of my shoulders when he was sure that I was steady on my feet. Treize was still laughing, and I glared at him. Whether it's by a kid or an ancient, undead jerk, no one likes being laughed at. "What the fuck do you want with me, Treize?" I asked, my voice shaking with a mixture of fear and anger.

There was a soft, throaty growl, and I looked to the side in time to see the woman that had been lounging on the steps stand up. She moved fluidly up the stairs, leaving behind a trail of warm energy that rolled over me in waves. The bits of white leather she was wearing didn't leave much to the imagination; I could clearly see the smooth curve of her hips and buttocks as she moved away. Strangely enough, the sight didn't embarrass me at all. Her entire attitude colored how she moved and how I saw her so much that I don't think it would have bothered me if she'd been completely naked. Once at the top of the stairs, she sat down at the vampire's feet, leaning against his leg and resting her chin on his knee, all the while regarding me disinterestedly with her golden eyes. "Be careful how you speak to Master Treize," she said, her voice languid, "or I will eat your tongue."

I shut my mouth with an audible click. Two things were immediately evident to me in this particular situation; One, I did not want to mess with the woman, because she was not kidding, and two, while she wasn't a vampire, she sure as hell wasn't human. No human leaked energy like that.

Treize reached one hand down and idly stroked the woman's hair as if she were some prize pet in need of being soothed. "While indelicately put, my lady does indeed have a point. I have been treating you, Mr. Maxwell, with more courtesy than most Masters treat each other. I would ask that you reciprocate."

I gritted my teeth and ducked my head. Since Treize was still directing all of his attention at me, I guessed that I had to do all the talking...but I was damned if I was going to apologize. I did not like being screwed with. "I don't recall Miss Manners ever saying that mind games were a part of being courteous."

"Mind games? Really...why should I waste my time like that?" Treize smiled.

Despite my efforts to play it cool, I could feel my eyes widening with shock at the realization that had just steam-rollered its way over me. Treize hadn't been trying to take over my mind or mess with my head. He just leaked energy that much. He was just that old. If he ever really tried to pull me under with his eyes, I wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell. "Jesus..." I whispered.

"He has nothing to do with the current situation, Mr. Maxwell, though he was a good man and interesting to speak with. I apologize, however, for losing control of my power in such a manner," Treize said calmly. "I brought you here, because I wish to seek your help. Aide is always better when freely given, I think." His gaze had almost palpable weight as it swept over us. "While most of the interest has been focused on you, Mr. Maxwell, because of the nature of your talents, your four compatriots also seem to be very powerful in their own right, though none of us are quite sure what the nature of that power may be."

For an instant, I could feel his attention focused to one side of me, at Wufei. Wufei tensed. "What do you need our help for?" he asked.  
"There is a great deal going on, Mr. Chang, that humans have no idea about. There's an entire world contained in the hours that humans are asleep, and we have our own politics and battles. It was not my decision to bring you into this particular dispute. Kalin, the imbecile that was sent here to kill me last year, decided that for you...his death brought you to the attention of quite a few significant groups in my world." Treize chuckled softly. "Kalin was sent by the vampire council because lately, we have not been seeing eye to eye and while they would like to force me to comply with their wishes, they are too cowardly to take up the battle themselves. I've heard that they've sent another of their lackeys after me already."

"We've met," I said dryly.

"I don't find that surprising. Out of curiosity, who is it?"

"Some guy named Johannes." I shrugged. "He's threatening to kill a lot of people if I don't tell him where you are."

"That's interesting." Treize smiled. "Very interesting. I'll have to ask you not to reveal my location to him. Things could get very unpleasant for everyone in Tokyo if a pitched battle between us occurs."

"That does the people he's going to kill a lot of good."

"More people will die if you tell him where I am, Mr. Maxwell. I will take care of Johannes, rest assured."

"Yeah, right," I muttered, not feeling terribly reassured. Johannes might not have been as old as Treize, but I also knew that he wasn't anything to sneeze at. "Why's he gunning for you?"

"Because, Mr. Maxwell," Treize leaned forward a little, "I wish to bring my people out of hiding and make them part of your world."

He had to be kidding.

"It would make things a good deal safer for all parties involved." he continued, "Forcing someone to continually hide puts a great deal of stress on them, and that stress often is relieved with violence. Imagine a world where vampires are subject to the same laws as the human population and can be regulated in the same manner. It would make the world a safer place for you humans."

"You're crazy," I said. "There's no way the rest of the world would go along with that."

"You'd be surprised. I've already set things in motion in Tokyo. It's only a matter of time."

I didn't know what to say to that. The thought of vampires out, just walking around in the open, made my skin crawl. It couldn't work. Besides...even if legality meant that vampires would have laws and could be arrested, the same legality would probably make it a little tough for me to shoot them on sight. No deal. I shook my head. "I don't buy it."

"You don't have to like it or agree with it, Mr. Maxwell. The sad fact is, if you wish to keep not only Tokyo, but Japan and the rest of this world in one piece you have to either support me, or at the least not hinder me. The situation here is in a very tenuous balance. This is where the ruling council of witches currently resides." Treize lightly caressed the cheek of the woman, who still had her head on his knee. "My Lady Une is the Alpha of Korpar Avgang, which is now considered to be the strongest werewolf pack in this hemisphere because with them is the vampire known as the Master of Beasts."

I glanced at the Une. Suddenly learning that she was some kind of supernatural being didn't really faze me, strangely enough. Then again, when I'd already been hit with the neutron bomb of shocks, any surprise after that seemed kind of ordinary. Werewolves, though...I wasn't sure if I could believe that. Une idly watched me in return, her golden eyes almost glowing in the soft light. I had seen eyes like that before... on the wolves downstairs.

Oh. Shit.

A small smile crept over Une's lips, as if the woman could read what I was thinking in my eyes, and she yawned languidly, tensing her shoulders in a momentary stretch that set the lines of firm muscles in sharp relief on her arms. Another wave of warm, golden energy flowed over me. My stomach tightened, as well as things a little lower. /Now is not the time or the place. Cut that out./

"If you lead the interloper Johannes to me, and he somehow manages by some fluke to kill me, what I have been holding in check here will explode. The streets will run with blood." Treize actually smiled. "And then the existence of vampires will be revealed to humanity in that way. Either way, my wish will come true. Wouldn't it be better if there were less loss of life?"

I gritted my teeth. "Yeah, no loss of life is great...but you're forgetting the same thing as Johannes did." I grinned. "Before he died, I told Kalin that I am Shinigami. I don't deal with vampires or work for them. I kill them. You're not going to get any help from me."

Treize nodded, not acting even the slightest bit surprised. "All I ask is that if you choose not to help me, you also do not help my enemies. I'd rather not have to consider you my enemy in this." While his expression still stayed pleasant, I got the distinct impression that being his enemy would be bad to the tune of lots of blood, not all of it mine.

I kept my grin in place. "Johannes is a blood-sucker too. He's not going to get any help either. I just want the both of you to leave me out of your ugly little turf war."

"You'll be forced to take a side soon enough, Mr. Maxwell. I'll let you have your illusion of neutrality for now." Treize rose to his feet, followed closely by Une, and he walked down the stairs toward us. The only thing that kept me from backing up and running away was the knowledge that it was a long way down to the bottom of the steps. All too soon, I was face to face, or rather face to chest with the Master of Tokyo. Like everyone else on the stinking planet, he was taller than me. Of course. "I have a personal favor to ask of you, Mr. Maxwell," he said. Une leaned up against his back, one arm wrapped loosely around his waist.

I looked up and focused my attention on his left ear. No way in hell was I going to look him in the eye. "Yeah?"

"I would like you to look into the fires that have been occurring lately; I've lost quite a few of my people to them. Before you refuse, please consider that a number of humans have died as well, and since we tend to live close to humans, if the fires continue, more people will die."

I fought off a grimace. "I'll look into it," I said, "no promises."

"None asked for. Thank you, Mr. Maxwell." Treize held his hand out.

I shook my head and pointedly tucked my hands into my pockets. "Sorry, but no. I'm not going to make things easier for you."

Treize chuckled softly. "You still think that I'm trying to roll your mind." He pulled back his hand. "Do you know who Shinigami is, Mr. Maxwell?"

"Me. I am. The God of Death." I raised my eyebrows.

Treize took a step forward. My nose was almost touching the royal blue jacket of the uniform he was wearing, and the faintly musky scent of Treize and whatever cologne he was wearing washed over me. Below it, I could catch a hint of the dull, earthy tone of old blood that seemed to follow every vampire. "Shinigami was and still is the Devil," Treize said.

Before I had a chance to respond, the world blinked. 


	12. Chapter 12

Pyractomena Borealis Part XII

"What the hell?" I shielded my eyes with one hand. One moment, I'd been standing in a dim, endless room with my nose almost touching Treize Khushrenada's chest. Now, it was suddenly a hell of a lot brighter, Treize was conspicuously absent, and there was a soft, warm breeze playing gently across my cheeks and tugging at my hair. "Guys?" I squinted, trying to make my eyes adjust a little more quickly. I smelled the sickly-sweet scent of morning glories mixed with other, uglier weeds.

"Here," Wufei said. "What was that?"

"Where are we?" Heero asked, his voice very, very cold.

Still shielding my eyes from the light, I looked down, which seemed to be a safe direction. Dark green grass that was in serious need of mowing surrounded my feet. I dropped to my knees and grabbed a handful. It came out of the ground with a satisfying rip, and I sniffed it cautiously. Between the tangy scent of the grass and the dew that was now soaking into my pants, I couldn't doubt any more. This was real. I looked up into an endlessly blue, almost cloudless sky stretched that out as far as I could see. There were trees reaching up for the horizon.

And our Gundams.

I dropped the handful of grass as I stared at Deathscythe. The black gloss of his gundanium armor was shining with almost painful intensity, not marred by even the smallest scratch or dent. There was no indication at all that any of them had been in a fight.

"Oh shit," someone said quietly. It was Trowa.

You got to hand it to Trowa; he always knows what to say. I turned my head towards him. "No kid-"

Except that Trowa wasn't looking at the Gundams. He was looking in the opposite direction, his eyes wide. Not only that, but there was the cruel, silver line of a knife glittering in his hand, and I could see the tautness of his arm under his flight suit. He was ready to let fly at something.

Calmness flooded through me, and instinctively without a second thought, I reached for the Browning that I'd had in my shoulder rig before all the weird shit started happening. Surprisingly enough, it was back from its long absence--I guess Treize's mommy had taught him to put things back where he found them. I had the gun out of its holster and was thumbing off the safety with a final sounding 'click' as I was turned to face whatever the hell it was behind us.

I wasn't the only one that had noticed something was wrong. Just an instant after I had completed my turn, there were two more clicks, and the soft metallic hiss of knives being drawn. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see two gun barrels, no doubt belonging to Heero and Quatre. Wufei had produced what he called a knife and everyone else called a big freaking sword.

That wasn't nearly as interesting as what we had in front of us, though. Down the matte black line of my Browning's barrel, with the notch of the sight settled in the center of her chest, stood a petite woman with white-  
blonde hair and cold, cold blue eyes. It wasn't hard to recognize her, even with the consideration that it was broad daylight and she wasn't carrying a sawed-off shotgun.

"You." My voice sounded even colder than I had intended, which was a real accomplishment.

"Hello to you too," Tamlin said, her mouth quirking up in a smirk. "Is that a gun in your hand, or are you just happy to see me?" Her smirk didn't reach her eyes at all. Not even Heero had ever managed to reach their depths of sheer chill. Then again, I had a feeling that Tamlin had been killing people professionally before we were born. I also had the feeling that, unlike us, she enjoyed her job.

"What do you want?" Wufei asked, his voice tight. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see one of the gun barrels wavering almost imperceptibly--and it was the one that belonged to Heero. The lines of tense muscles were visible under the sleeves of his flight suit, and his jaw was clenched. Heero had never liked Tamlin, but not in the way I was used to him not liking people. I'd never even been tempted to ask him about it, since I'm a smart boy and I value my life, but I had the feeling that he was a little scared of her--and that in itself was enough to put the fear of God into me.

"The same thing all five of you want."

I snorted at that. "Somehow, I don't think peace is your aim."

"No. My aim is Death." Call me crazy, but I did not like what she was implying there.

"Cut the bullshit." Trowa said. I jumped at the sound. I've never heard his voice that loud...or that coldly furious. Emotion and Trowa weren't things I normally associated. Hell, foul language and Trowa weren't things I normally associated! "What the hell are you?"

Tamlin smiled charmingly, which was kind of like watching an alligator giving you its most innocent grin, and pointed at me. "Why don't you ask him. He should know."

I glared at her. "You're pushing it, Tamlin." The hair on the back of my neck stood up, which is my normal reaction to having everyone's attention directed towards me. At least in this case, I could shoot Tamlin if she gave me enough of an excuse. I hadn't yet found how to get away with that when it came to teachers putting me on the spot, unfortunately.

"Come, Maxwell, you still haven't figured it out? And I thought they said you were smart..." she let the sentence trail to a halt, and this time, I could see some emotion stir in the depths of her eyes; malicious amusement. Somehow, I preferred the simple dead ice that I was used to.

"Sorry, I'm fresh out of banter today, you're just going to have to make do without," I said through gritted teeth. It shouldn't have been possible for someone to get under my skin and truly annoy the shit out of me so quickly, but I was guessing that she was trying really hard. She'd done this to me last time, and even though this was only the second time we'd crossed swords I was already damn sick of it. "Why are you here?"

"You wouldn't believe I simply enjoy your company?"

Wufei let out a sharp bark of a laugh. "Not on this side of hell," he said.

"I have information." Her voice became flat, all of the false good humor draining away.

"That's great." I said, in my best sarcastic tone. "What do you want in return?" I'd learned a long time ago that if they don't show you the tag right away, the price is so high that you'll have to mortgage your two best friends if you ever want to pay it off.

Tamlin's eyes narrowed slightly. "No price. The information is free."

"I find that hard to believe," Trowa said.

"Believe what you like, I'm telling the truth." She shrugged carelessly. "I won't be asking for anything in return."

Call me crazy, but I actually had the strange feeling that she was telling the truth, or at least her version of the truth. "Whatever. Answer me one question before we get down to business, then."

"What?"

"Are you planning to do anything that would make me want to shoot you, or can I put my gun down?"

She actually smiled. "If you don't push me, you will have no reason to shoot." I had a hunch that I could actually trust her on this one. I don't think that Tamlin was actually capable of lying; she just never told the whole truth, which can be far more damning and deceiving than a thousand tangled lies.

"Great." I let my poor, tired chicken arms drop. After a moment of consideration, I clicked the safety back on and slipped it into my holster. Tamlin raised an eyebrow at me. She'd gotten the point I was trying to make; I'd left a round chambered. "So talk." Heero and Quatre both lowered their guns, but they, notably, didn't put them away.

"The Master of Tokyo has finally surfaced," she said.

I raised an eyebrow at her. Man, was she behind on the times. "I know. We just met."

The shock on her face was almost worth all the stomach ulcers Treize was probably going to end up inflicting upon me.

"Oh," she said, "Really."

"Yes, really," Wufei piped up. Was that sarcasm in his voice? No, I must have been hearing things.

Quatre, next to him, was nodding enthusiastically, malicious amusement of his own dancing in his eyes. "And we met his little popsie, too."

I made a noise that was an unhealthy cross between a laugh and a choke. I should know better than to let Quatre surprise me by now...but to call UNE a popsie? Even if it wasn't to her face, that took some creative thinking and a set of big hairy ones...considering (according to intelligence that we'd gathered) that she was the closest thing Treize seemed to have to a spy master, she'd probably end up hearing about it sooner or later.

"Oh," Tamlin repeated. "Really."

I coughed quietly, and Quatre got the hint; he left off the lunatic grin to give Tamlin a moment to regain her balance and get back on task. As much as I didn't mind seeing her spinning her wheels for once, I didn't want to poke her too much. She might get cranky.

"So you've met him," she said carefully, a slightly amused smile creeping across her lips. The expression didn't reach her eyes. "That crafty old devil." Suddenly, she was sharp again. "Do you know how old he is?"

I shook my head, my thoughts scrambling as the conversation took a bit of an unexpected turn. "No...I don't. He's so old he makes my teeth hurt, but that's all I can tell."

"It was worth a try." She shook her head. "What did he want with you?"

I shrugged. "Pretty much the same thing that the Johannes guy wanted," she didn't so much as bat an eyelash at that one...I'd kind of figured that she'd known about my little one-on-one with the German master, "To recruit me and all that. I told him the same thing I told Johannes."

"What was that?"

"Where to stick it." I couldn't help but smile a little proudly at that. Me, the heap big vampire killer, so terminally stupid that I would tell not one but two extremely powerful master vampires to smeg off.

"I see." She didn't look amused. Her loss. "Did he want anything else?"

"Yeah. He wanted me to get in on the arson investigation."

Tamlin nodded. "Fire is one of a vampire's greatest enemies. Remember that. He's no doubt nervous because there's a pyro on the loose that isn't under his control."

"I assume that by pyro you're referring to something other than pyromaniacs?"

She allowed herself a little smug smile. Payback for us shocking her earlier, I guess. "Pyrokinetic. Fire starter, fire summoner, lightning bug, call them what you want. Someone with the ability to call flame and make things spontaneously combust. That's my other piece of information for you-  
there's a pyrokinetic on the loose that isn't under anyone's control. Whence the random nature of the fires."

"Ok, so what do you want me to do about all this?"

The smile became knife-edge sharp, and just as thirsty. "Kill him."

"Which one?" Wufei stepped in, asking the question that had been sitting on the tip of my tongue. He also managed to sound a lot less annoyed than I was all of a sudden feeling. I don't know who the hell put "hit man of the supernatural" on my forehead, but I was starting to get righteously aggravated about it.

"All three."

"Woah." I waved my hands. "Woah. No. No way in hell. I don't know if you noticed, lady, but we're all pilots. I can't speak for the other guys, but I can tell you that piloting is all I can take on my plate right now. I don't need to add any more suicidal tendencies, thanks."

"You--"

I cut her off cold. "And beside that point, I'm more inclined to let the two vampires duke it out, since at least one of them will get killed, and that'll be less work I have to do."

Her expression had lost any suggestion of warmth at that point. "You have to kill them," she said flatly.

"Why?"

"They're vampires."

"According to the head fang face himself, he's all that's keeping Tokyo from turning into the supernatural east side." I said carefully, trying not to let my growing annoyance show. People with one track minds (even Heero, at times) get on my bad side faster than anything else. "I don't know if he's lying or not, but I'd rather not chance it until I find out if he's telling the truth."

"That doesn't matter. The pyro is an uncontrolled threat, and the other two are vampires. They have to be eliminated."

"I'm not your personal assassin! I'm not going to go whack some human because you told me too, even if he is setting fires, and forgive me if I'm not eager to cause the streets of Tokyo to swim with blood because I've removed the only control there is!"

"You don't seem to understand...vampires. Pyros. They're twisted. They're evil. They have to die." Her voice got louder with each word.

"When did we bring the Spanish Inquisition back, huh? You shall not suffer a witch to live--is that what you're gunning for?" My voice was rising too. I personally had no love for vampires, but something about her dogged insistence that I had to kill them and the pyro was getting to me. There was a little voice whispering in the back of my head...one that asked 'If pyrokinetics are evil and don't deserve to live, what about necromancers, huh?' "Who the hell are you to decide who lives and who dies?"

It never occured to me until much, much later how nearly everything I'd been saying was something that I aimed at myself in some form or another when I was indulging in an after battle bout of self-flagellation.

Tamlin froze as if I'd just slapped her...then called me the dirtiest word in the english language. "Hypocrite," she whispered venomously.

I snapped. My world narrowed to one objective--I was going to get her for that. If anything else was going on, I didn't notice.

Suddenly, I was almost nose to nose with her. She'd lost all of her chill...or maybe it had gotten deeper, but either way, she had obviously lost her temper too. There was a look in her eyes that I recognized all too well...I've seen it in myself way too often. "Shut the hell up and listen, would you? I don't take orders from you, the Master of the City or anyone else for that matter. I didn't ask for this. Get the fuck out of my business!"

Her hand moved toward me. I simply reacted. My gun was suddenly out and resting against her temple the instant the tip of her index finger gently touched the base of my neck. The simple touch almost brought me to my knees; her finger was cold, cold like liquid nitrogen. It burned, more than anything else I'd ever felt...and even worse, the touch pulled at me, sucking away at my own warmth and making my heart beat irregularly.

"Hypocrite," Tamlin hissed quietly. Her skin and lips had become chilly blue in an instant, and she had frost stiffening her hair and glittering on her cheeks.

I tried to reply, but my throat felt stiff, and very, very cold. I could hear my breath wheezing loudly in my own ears. So instead, I started pulling at my gun's trigger. Two more gun barrels came to rest against her head, and I could see a thin edge of silver resting against her neck.

"Drop your hand." Heero said quietly, from what sounded like years and years away.

Tamlin's eyes narrowed slightly. "I am not here by my own choice. If I had my way you'd be dead." There was a look in her eyes, one that transcended any amount of madness I could currently achieve...but I had a bad feeling that I could some day go that way.

Then she unraveled. That's the only way I could begin to describe it; she suddenly lost all color, turning white, and her body unraveled into braided mist that faded into the air, leaving nothing behind.

Someone whispered a very, very quiet "Fuck." It was Trowa again.

There was no sensation of movement, but suddenly I was on my knees, one hand still holding my gun, the other clutching my throat as I tried to remember how to breathe. Beneath my knees, the grass was very, very cold. 


	13. Chapter 13

Pyractomena Borealis XIII

The burning I'd felt when Tamlin had touched my neck hadn't been an illussion; when I looked in the mirror (after I'd calmed down enough to be able to even think about purely cosmetic stuff) there was a red, perfectly round circle at the base of my throat. In the middle of the red burn, there was a huge blister.

Shit.

The guy that taught me how to torture people once said that burns hurt worse than any other kind of wound. I was definitely willing to believe that. I couldn't help but stare at the reflection of the perfectly round little burn in the bathroom mirror as pained reality fought a very brief battle with complete disbelief. Tamlin wasn't a witch; I knew that much. I'd met a couple of real, honest to God witches, the hag in the department store being a prime example, and they hadn't felt anything like her.

'I am not here by my own choice.'

That last words she'd said before disappearing seemed to be permanently stitched into my frontal lobes. Every time that woman showed up, she always left more questions behind than she answered...the real brain bender this time around was the scary question of who the hell was sending her at us,  
since she wasn't just showing up for her own malicious pleasure.

And then there was still the question of what exactly she was. I knew one thing for sure, now...she definitely wasn't alive in the classic definition of the word. The mental scent she gave off was eerily similar to vampires,  
but it was different enough that I was certain she was something else. I felt like I was at war with myself, almost; it was like I knew what she was,  
but I couldn't get anywhere near it. Just thinking about it made all of my body hair stand on end. It scared me, yeah, but it also really pissed me off. She'd been doing her best to annoy me ever since she'd first appeared,  
that much had been obvious. What had she been trying to accomplish? What would making me lose my temper do? Why hadn't I just shot the bitch the minute she'd touched me?

Would it have done--

"Duo, have you finished gazing at yourself yet?" Wufei asked dryly. The absolute sarcasm in his voice caused my train of thought to jump its tracks.  
All on board were killed.

I glared at his reflection in the mirror. "No. Go away."

He smirked at me. "If you want, I could kiss it and make it better."

"Wufei..." I glared at him even harder.

"Or I suppose I could ask Heero if he'd like to..." He let the sentence trail, his smirk reaching all new shit-eating proportions.

"WUFEI!" I spun around, ready to deck him, friend or no, only to be greeted by the sight of his retreating backside.

Not a bad sight, but still...I growled to myself, wincing as the burn on my neck twinged. Ok...priority one: take care of wound. Priority two: kill Wufei. Check.

I practically tore our tiny medicine chest apart looking for something to put on the wound. Nothing but petroleum based antibiotic cream, and I knew better than to use that. I had to settle for just a bandaid...at least it kept my collar from rubbing on it.

Great, so now it looked like I was attempting to hide a hickey. I tell you,  
some days I just can't win. As a note, I would have definitely preferred a hickey to a burn, though from a source other than Tamlin. Now there's a nasty thought. Ugh.

I tried to button the collar of my shirt up in the hope of quelling any speculation by my peers about my necking practices. Once I got the top button done, I could barely swallow, and the burn hurt like a son of a bitch. The collar was way too small, which shouldn't have been that much of a surprise since the shirt actually didn't belong to me. It was from one of Quatre's spare uniforms. Even after the witch at the department store,  
Treize, and now Tamlin, life still went on. It was a real shame, since I really would have liked to indulge in a nervous breakdown about now. Still,  
we all had to fake like we were going to school, and I still had to find more school uniform shirts. I was hoping this attempt would be more successful than the last one.

Wufei was waiting for me when I finally got out of the bathroom. "Ready to go?" he asked, eyebrow raised and smirk unfurled.

I snarled at him, which he only seemed to find more amusing. Without another word, I headed out of the room. The rest of the guys were waiting for us out in the hall; it had been an unspoken agreement after we'd made it back to the school that we weren't going to take any chances; bad things seemed to happen when we got separated into smaller groups. So we were all going shopping. What fun.

It had gotten hotter while we'd made our stop at the dorm, though part of that no doubt came from the fact that we weren't in a cool green meadow any more. Concrete and asphalt has a tendency to soak in heat, so that it gets to about egg frying temperature in no time. The entire atmosphere was made even more oppressive by the fact that the little breeze we'd had this morning had died down, so now the humidity just sat on my hair and shoulders instead of evaporating off. Tokyo is hell in the summer, and we were getting pretty darn close to it.

We walked past a group of businessmen laughing and smoking cigarettes.  
Quatre sneezed, then I sneezed in sympathy, which made my eyes water.

"I don't understand how they can smoke when it's so hot." Quatre said as soon as we were out of hearing range. "It's too hot as it is, without sucking on something that happens to be burning."

I couldn't help it; I laughed.

Quatre raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny about that?"

"You, Quatre of Arabia," I said, eliciting a snort from him, "complaining about it being too hot. If I remember right, you were the one bragging about how you guys could cook hamburgers on the sand dunes at lunch time."

"How many times do I have to tell you? It's not the heat--"

"--it's the humidity. I know." I grinned at him. "We just have to be careful...don't want to tax your delicate cons--"

Heero reached out and grabbed my sleeve, which was the only thing that stopped me from running into a veritable wall of humans. It looked like the world's biggest pedestrian traffic jam. The entire street was blocked with people standing, most of them wearing school uniforms or business suits...so basically, your average crowd in Tokyo. Most of them were talking to each other, or standing around and looking bored. A girl carrying an enormous shopping bag full of books

"Duo...is there a parade scheduled?" Heero asked.

I shook my head. "Not that I've heard. Today's not a holidy, if I remember right." I looked over at Quatre and mouthed the question to him; there was no way he was going to be able to hear me over the noise of the crowd ahead of us. He shook his head in mute reply, my earlier jab about his delicate constitution forgotten. "Quatre says no too." I said, "and you know he remembers that stuff better than me."

The ground beneath me shook. It was an almost imperceptible tremor at first.  
I wasn't the only one that felt it, though...the entire crowd fell silent and turned away from us, looking toward the end of the street, where the shocks seemed to be radiating from. Several of the school girls in the back started jumping up and down, trying to see what was happening ahead. The tremor came again, and again, once every two or three seconds. Definitely not an earthquake. I glanced back at Heero, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach.

A sound began to build under the tremor; not a rumbling like you'd expect out of some sort of geological phenomenon, but an electric whining noise,  
like an overworked motor. I winced. It was a sound I recognized all to well.

Bright metal flashed in the small space between two skyscrapers. An instant later, a Leo walked into view in front of us. Another followed it, and another. An entire convoy was walking down Chuo Street;  
they must have blocked it off so that the pedestrian traffic wouldn't get under foot. My stomach gave an odd lurch to the left as I watched them go by. This was the convoy that Treize had used to lure us out.  
Not fictional - just rescheduled.

That bastard.

A deeper tremor ran up my leg, just as a line of bright red crossed between the skyscrapers. It reminded me uncomfortably of blood streaked on glass. A split second later, a brilliant white mobile suit, dwarfing the Leos, walked into view. There was a splash of black and maroon on its shoulder; a man in an Oz uniform, his long blonde hair streaming out behind him, the sun glinting off his mask. Zechs Merquise, showcasing for the crowd while Tallgeese marched along on autopilot. He lifted one white-gloved hand and waved languidly...and the crowd actually cheered. I could hear adolescent girls letting out their extra-special piercing squeals, the ones they normally reserved for rock starts. It was enough to make a cat sick.

"Well," I heard Quatre say, "this makes things more interesting."

We stood there long after the convoy had passed and the crowd had cleared,  
trying to figure out how this new problem fit into the overall cluster fuck. 


	14. Chapter 14

Pyractomena Borealis Part XIV

The next morning, or afternoon rather, we still weren't any closer to figuring out what to do and we had pretty much 24 hours before Johannes would be showing up to demand an answer. My wits were failing me even worse than normal--I had no idea what to do other than tell him to go screw himself. As fun as that might be to say, it didn't seem like a good solution overall. I like my arms attached to my body and my throat just as it is, thankyouverymuch.

Besides...it wasn't just my life hanging on this one. Otherwise, I probably would have just gone for option one and hoped to god that I was one lucky little punk.

I glared at the sagging acoustic tiles above me as if expecting the little black pinholes in them to rearrange themselves and spell out an answer. No luck there; I idly started counting the number of tea colored water stains.

Let's see...there 25 tiles directly in my field of vision. Seven were clean, the rest had one or more stains. Add them all up, the total came up to be something like 30, plus a bonus of nine spit wads...

Not that I was bored or anything.

The teacher continued to drone on about the joys of writing business cases, oblivious to how many of her students' brains she'd already managed to kill. I slid lower into my seat so I could stare at the ceiling a little better, and wondered if she'd even noticed if I slid under my desk and belly-crawled out the door. The tiles were nice and slick...it'd be no problem.

Nah, that probably wouldn't be the best of ideas. I wasn't really looking for a chat with the principle if I got caught. I was already well acquainted with her, and she was a real nice lady and all, but I had the feeling that she was getting pretty tired of seeing me. A glance at the clock showed that the traitorous minute hand hadn't even moved since the last time I checked.

Some people contest the theory that there is time dilation the closer you get to a black hole. With the agreed upon fact that school is a black hole, all you have to do is watch time slow down the closer you crawl towards the end of your last class, and the theory is proven. Still, there were only five minutes left. It would only take...oh...another three hours to for those five minutes to pass. I could see Heero a few rows ahead of me, studiously taking notes in a spiral notebook. Or at least I figured he was taking notes. For all anyone knew, while we all thought he was diligently paying attention, he was actually writing Marquise de Sade style porn.

Well...maybe not.

I pulled a sheet of loose-leaf out of my binder, scribbled a quick note in it, then folded it up into a little triangle. I waited until the teacher was looking away from me (not that I think she would have noticed anyway) before flipping it at the back of Heero's head with an expert flick of my wrist. He shoots...he scores! My shot hit the mark dead center, effectively poking him in the back of the head with one of its sharp little corners before falling on the floor.

Heero immediately turned his head back toward me and favored me with one of the most baleful glares I'd ever seen out of him. I grinned and waved, then pointed at the floor. After another brief power glower, he leaned over and picked up the note, then quickly unfolded it and read. I sat back in my chair and inspected the ceiling again.

Less than a minute later, my little paper football came whizzing back at me and managed to lodge itself in my nose. I don't know how Heero managed it, but all I can say is that I've taught him well. After a brief struggle that actually caused the teacher to pause for two seconds or so before continuing on, I managed to win my fight against gravity and didn't fall out of my chair. It was a close call. By the time I was upright in my seat again, Heero was back to studiously taking notes and didn't see me flip off the back of his head.

The note that had hit me in the nose was short and to the point, like everything Heero says and does. On it, he had simply written "Yes" in his usual, overly neat handwriting.

I grinned. All I'd done was ask if he wanted to go for a walk. Little did he know what the walk was going to involve...

A movie and dinner later, it was starting to get dark, and Heero and I were making our way slowly back toward the school. Well, to be more accurate, I was moving slowly, and Heero was racing up ahead, kindly stopping every four blocks or so. I wanted to punch him, but didn't have an energy.

After class, we'd met up, dropped out books off, and headed out for our "little" walk. Who would have thought, we managed to go right by a movie theater on the way to the park. By an even more amazing coincidence, it just happened to be the main theater in town that was playing the re-release of a movie I'd been really wanting to see. Heero didn't have a chance to protest. Besides, it was probably a movie that he secretly wanted to see anyway.

A couple hours of Hong Kong action later, my stomach was growling and Heero wasn't glowering any more than normal, so I hauled him into an okonomiyaki shop. He'd had just a regular dish, and I'd had the full meal...okonomiyaki with squid, rice, soup, and a fried egg.

Which explained why I was currently dragging my stomach along the sidewalk and Heero was still zipping around. Walking garbage can I might be, it's still possible for even the largest dumpsters to overflow when they get too much put in them.

"Damnit, Heero, wait up, will you?" I yelled after Heero, he was about two blocks ahead of me and drawing away fast. Yeesh, you'd think he didn't want anyone to think we were associated or something. I half expected him to keep walking, but he stopped and waited for me to catch up with him. "Don't make me kick your ass, man. I just saw a martial arts movie." I grinned at him. 

He snorted. "I'm not worried. You don't have a green destiny sword."

That one took me off guard, and I laughed. I hadn't been expecting Heero to react, let alone joke around with me back. There must have been something funny in the okonomiyaki. After that, he actually slowed down enough for me to keep up with him.

It was full dark by the time we were about five blocks away from our school, and the streets were pretty much deserted, since we were wandering through a residential area. All in all, it wasn't an unpleasant night; the heat from the day had retreated almost completely. There was no movement on, not even from the leafy tree branches hanging over the concrete garden walls on either side of the street. Other than our breathing, I could only hear a few crickets chirping and the stuttering hum from a fluorescent light further down the street that was blinking off and on. It was peaceful, relaxing, and exactly what I needed.

Heero and I continued to walk along in companionable silence, pausing at the end of the street to wait for the walk signal to change. There weren't any cars coming, actually, but I really didn't want to rush back to the school. For once, Heero wasn't in a hurry either. So there we were, two happenin' dudes out on a stroll.

Still waiting for the signal, I glanced up at the sky. There weren't many stars visible, but then again, there never are in Tokyo; there's too much ambient light from all the neon and such. The moon was out, though, still waxing and almost full. The humidity in the air caught its light and made it into a halo. Just looking at it made the breath catch in my throat; I've seen the moon plenty of times from orbit or from the inside of a colony, and yeah, it's awe inspiring then, but...the sight of the moon through the atmosphere is more beautiful and mysterious than anything else I've ever seen.

Like the moon had noticed me watching and decided to give me some attention in return, energy surged along under the ground beneath me, making all of my body hair stand on end. I should have known better than to think about it; when I ignore it, the pull that I feel from the night usually leaves me alone, like it's sulking or something. I gritted my teeth and resisted the temptation to reach out and touch the power. /Stop that./ I mentally hissed at it.

A hand clamped down on my wrist and I yelped, almost falling over backwards. It was just Heero, of course. My skin was tingling where he was touching me, like he was statically charged. I did my best to ignore it. I had a hard time ignoring the look in his eyes, though. I never thought the two little bits of ice Heero has instead of irises could look so...soft.

"Duo," he said carefully. Hell, even his voice sounded softer.

I thought about tugging my wrist out of his grasp, but decided against it. I had a feeling that I wouldn't be able to make him let go unless he wanted to, anyway. Besides...it wasn't unpleasant. Just a little...odd. "Yeah?"

"I..." his tongue flicked over his lips.

Heero was...nervous? I had to be imagining things.

"Yes?"

"I..." his hand tightened around my wrist.

My curiosity was curiously piqued, and for some strange reason, I also felt like I was going to puke...and I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the okonomiyaki. Heero opened his mouth to try again...

Squealing tires drowned out anything that he might have been saying as a pair of headlights pulled around the corner and headed right towards us. Heero let go of my wrist like he'd been burnt while I just stared at the oncoming high beams, suddenly understanding how deer felt. There was another high-pitched squeal, this one from the brakes of the enormous car that was bearing down on us.

The part of my brain that had been trying to figure out what the hell was going on finally said "fuck it, bright lights, loud noises, I don't like it" and decided in a split second that whoever it was in the car, I probably wanted to shoot them just on the principle of the thing. My hand was reaching for my gun, conveniently stowed under my uniform's jacket, just was the car door was flung open and we were assaulted with a third high pitched squeal.

"HEEEEEEEERO!"

Or, to be more accurate, I was assaulted by the supersonic noise. Heero was, conspicuously, nowhere to be seen.

That little bastard. 


	15. Chapter 15

Pyractomena Borealis Part 15

Relena and I regarded each other warily across the hood of her pink monstrosity of a limousine. The grip of my gun was warm under my fingers. Relena's eyes narrowed slightly as she noticed my hand hovering oh-so-casually under my jacket. It was like a spaghetti western--all we were missing was the cheesy harmonica music and the blowing tumbleweeds.

"Duo," she said, her tone a lot more polite than I would have expected out of her. Strangely enough, the corner of her mouth quirked up, like she was trying not to laugh.

I suddenly realized that unless you knew that I had a propensity for wearing shoulder rigs, which I doubted Relena was even aware existed, I looked like I was scratching my armpit. I hastily crossed my arms over my chest, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. She had the upper hand in this one, and I really didn't like that. "Relena." I nodded politely, keeping my voice as neutral as possible.

The little smirk disappeared. "I'm glad to see you're doing well," she said stiffly.

"Yeah. Fit as a fiddle."

Pause.

After a long round of trying to stare me down, Relena finally decided that she wasn't going to win the battle of wills. "So," she said, her voice clipped, "where's Heero?"

I made a big show of looking left and right. "Apparently," I replied, mimicking her tone perfectly, "somewhere else."

"I thought he was with you."

"So did I," I muttered.

She looked at me sharply. "What was that?"

"Nothing." I gave her my most charming smile.

Pause.

"So," she said. It wasn't the lead in for a question or a sentence. It just stopped there.

"Yeah?"

Pause. Again. It was like God was playing with his freaking VCR remote. It certainly didn't help that I was feeling a little jumpy already. Relena had shown up; I had a bad feeling that it was only a matter of time before something caught on fire and I was just hoping that it wasn't going to be me.

She licked her lips, like she was nervous. "I...uh...don't suppose you'd like a ride back to the school?"

I'd had a smart retort all ready to go, and that one knocked me flat on my butt. She wasn't being rude to me or acting superior. She'd actually hesitated, and asked me something semi-nicely...plus...she sounded so awkward it was almost kind of...well...cute. So I did the only thing I could after having my worst enemy abruptly jerk the rug out from underneath me by not acting like a pissy bitch; I gaped. "What?"

"It's still a bit of a walk back to your school," she said. "I was wondering if you'd like a ride."

I blinked several times, hoping to banish what was obviously a hallucination. No such luck. It was real. Relena was being...well...nice to me. It wasn't just her kicking over my little ant hill that had me, though--it was the fact that there was no way I could refuse without looking like a rude bastard. There was no escape from this invitation. "Er...ok."

So, not five minutes later, I found myself surrounded by the beige interior of Relena's outsized Barbie car. I was pleasantly surprised by the tastefully neutral upholstery, actually; I'd been expecting something as stomach-churningly pink as the outside.

She must have noticed me looking wonderingly around; after she told the monkey boy in the front to start driving, she gave me a secret little smile. "The car was a birthday present," she said, "and I don't particularly like pink, so I had the inside re-done."

Just when I thought I'd hit the point where I couldn't get any more surprised, she had me again. I did my best large-mouth bass imitation and gaped.

She shifted in her seat, then smoothed her skirt down. "Duo," she said, after a long moment of hesitation, "may I ask you a question?"

I raked my bangs away from my eyes with my fingernails. My absolute shock was finally giving way to an odd mix of dread and morbid fascination. I had no idea who this person was and what she'd done with Relena, but I figured that as long as the question wasn't 'Do I make you horny, baby?' I'd be ok. "Er...yeah. Shoot."

"Why do you dislike me?"

If I'd had something in my hands, I would have dropped it. If I'd been able to, I would have fallen out of my seat--except there was no way I was going to do that here, since I'd end up in Relena's lap. I settled for staring at her for a minute while I waited for what was left of my wits to come limping back. I seriously considered telling her that she was wrong, that I did like her okay...but no. There was a brief war between my principles, namely being nice to girls and being honest. Honesty won out. She was in trouble, as my tact had run away screaming some time around my tenth birthday. "I dislike you because you're rude to me," I finally said. I was surprised to hear that my voice was perfectly steady.

She jerked back like someone had slapped her, which I guess is what I had done, in the metaphorical sense. I had a feeling that no one had had the utter gall to dislike her before, or at least admit to it...except for Heero. "W-  
what?"

"You're rude to me." I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. Satisfyingly enough, as I leaned forward, she edged away. "You show up because you're chasing Heero. That's your business. But most of the time, when you show up, I'm there as well. Do you know what it's like to have someone not acknowledge your existence, or look right through you because what they want to see is behind you? Do you have any idea how frustrating it is when you're reduced to nothing more than a way to get to something?" I sat back. "If you think it's anything other than rude, you need to go have a talk with Miss Manners."

Somewhere along the way, Relena's shocked expression had disappeared, leaving a dry, bitter little smile in its wake. "Actually," she said softly, "I know exactly how that feels."

Well, there went my fit of righteous pique. "What?"

She smoothed her skirt down again, almost reflexively. "I guess I owe you an apology."

I stared at her in absolute shock. It was a very weird, twilight-zone-esque feeling to suddenly discover that I actually had something in common with the person I'd most like to drop off the edge of a really tall cliff.  
"Uh...thanks," I said. We sat in uncomfortable silence for several minutes before I'd managed to get the little hamster powering my brain to start running in the right direction again. "Mind if I ask you a question?"

She regarded me warily. "I suppose not."

"Good, 'cause you owe me one." I sighed and rubbed my right wrist, feeling oddly comforted by the thin line of scar tissue under my fingertips. Nervous habits are hard to break. "How come you keep following us around?"

"I'm not 'following' anyone," she informed me stiffly, "I'm simply looking for Heero. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to find him."

I had a feeling that now, like last time, the moment of camaraderie was pretty much over. "You show up every time he's in one location for more than three or four days, and you somehow always manage to do it when I'm around. I can practically set my watch by it. Lady, you are either following him like a dog waiting to be kicked, or you're stalking me because I have a wonderful butt. Which is it?"

Her eyes narrowed dangerously, and her cheeks started getting red. Uh oh. I had the feeling that I'd made her mad. "I am in love with Heero," she said coldly. "Of course I want to be with him. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Yeah, I do." I wasn't going to let her intimidate me. I was bigger than her, stronger than her, and, I hoped, smarter. Oh yeah, and I had a gun too. Almost forgot. "You're endangering all of us every time you show up. You think there aren't people watching you? Are you TRYING to get us killed?"

"I--"

I cut her off. "And beyond that, you're not even really in love with Heero." I stabbed a finger at her. In a private corner of my mind, I was shocked at what I was saying. It was like all of my frustrations were pouring out of me at once. "You're infatuated with him. Obsessed with him. He's a person, not some toy you can acquire, for God's sake!"

She stared at me for a long moment, eyes wide with shock. Then all of her anger came flooding back. "How dare you! You're trying to keep us apart!"

"I'm trying," I snarled, "to grind some sense into your head!"

I caught her wrist just as she was pulling her hand back to slap me. It didn't stop her from saying what she wanted, though. "Heero is my knight in shining armor. He always protects me, because he loves me. You have no right to say those things to me, and you have no right to force us apart!"

I'd had enough. The car was stopping for a red light, so I let go of Relena's wrist. "Keep deluding yourself, Relena, that's none of my business. The fact that you're endangering my life is another matter. Grow up." With that, I flung the car door open and jumped out. I picked a random direction and stalked away, realizing with growing dismay that I had no idea where the hell I was. Relena's driver must have been taking the real scenic route; I was familiar with the area around the school, and I could tell that this definitely wasn't it.

The streets were nearly deserted; the only sign of life there was at all was a guy in a business suit, sitting at a bus stop and reading a newspaper by the light of the street lamp above him. He had long, red-highlighted hair; I could see it trailing down past his shoulder--pretty unusual for a businessman. As I went slouching past he didn't glance up from his paper.

There were running footsteps behind me, and then Relena grabbed my shoulder, stopping me in my tracks. "This discussion is not over," she bit out angrily.

I turned slowly to face her, trying to control my anger and only half succeeding. "This isn't a discussion. To be a discussion, you'd actually have to be listening to me." I jerked my shoulder back, dislodging her hand.

"Heero isn't yours," she said, doing her best imitation of a Yuy death glare, and getting surprisingly close to the right effect, "you have no idea how he feels."

"He's not yours either." My left hand was clenched into a fist, seemingly of its own accord, and it was all I could do to keep from punching the little bitch in the nose like she so richly deserved. "You have no clue how he feels either, because you've never even bothered to ask! You just assume that he must love you because you're obsessing over him."

"He--"

Cold, electric energy from the direction we'd come from rolled over me in a sharp wave, and my eyes widened. Every square centimeter of skin on my body tightened. It was all I could do not to shiver. "Shut up," I said. "Right now." Oh fuck. I'd felt this before, too many times to mistake it.

"How--" she began, her voice rising to an outraged shriek. Another wave of energy struck me with almost physical force. It made my teeth hurt, but I had the feel of it now. I knew what was coming. There were three of them, and they were on the hunt.

I grabbed her by the upper arm and jerked her toward me, covering her mouth with my other hand. She immediately sank her teeth in, hard enough to draw blood. I grimaced, but didn't let go. There were more important things to worry about right now--I'd just have to get my rabies shots later. "Listen to me very carefully," I whispered, "the argument is over for now. In a moment, I'm going to let you go, and then we're going to run. No questions, no arguing. If you want to live past the next five minutes, you have to run." 


	16. Chapter 16

Pyractomena Borealis Part 16 by Katsu

This chapter is dedicated to Evian. Hey, who says what small miracles may happen in the modern world?

"If you want to live past the next five minutes, you have to run." My eyes were drawn to the rooftops, scanning them for any sort of movement. I could feel warmth creeping down the palm of my hand, probably blood from where Relena had bit me. Or drool. Who knows. "Nod if you understand me."

Relena seemed frozen for a long moment. Her eyes were so wide that you could see the whites all around, and she was pale as death. I had a feeling I didn't look much better. The good old fight or flight response was kicking in, and fighting wasn't even under consideration. I must have made an impression on her; she attempted to nod, which was hampered by the fact that my hand was still firmly over her mouth.

"Great." I caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. We were out of time. "Now run." I let go of her quickly, transferring my grip from her upper arm to her wrist, then took off running. She had no choice; it was either run or be dragged. I wasn't about to leave her to the tender mercies of three vampires, no matter how much she pissed me off.

It was like running through an endless maze, in an out of the light puddles cast by the street lamps. Since I had no idea where I was or where I was going, I started taking random turns, hoping to lose the vampires that I still knew were pursuing us. I was starting to get a little tired; my breath was coming harder, but at least neither Relena or I had tripped and fallen yet. That would have been a bad thing. One thing I've got to say for Tokyo is that they keep their streets in good condition; if we'd been trying to run through any old city in Europe, one of us would have fallen and broken a leg by now. Relena was keeping up admirably; she was gasping for breath, a brilliant red smear of my blood streaked across on cheek, but she was still managing to run. A good shot of adrenaline has a way of helping a person do that, though.

I saw a bright flash of neon, far down the street ahead of us. Great. Neon meant shopping or entertainment district, which meant people, even as late as it was. We had a better chance to escaping in a crowd. My right knee was starting to twinge a little under the strain of running on a hard surface, never a good sign. I did my best to ignore it and poured on more speed, heading for the light and dragging Relena along behind me. Seven intersections to go...six...five...

FUCK!

Something dropped down to the street, nearly on top of us--a vampire. I backpedaled quickly, yanking Relena toward me even as the thing made a grab for her other arm. As I was turning to run down the left hand street, I pulled out the Browning, somehow got the safety off, and fired two shots at the thing without even bothering to aim. Miracle of miracles, I must have at least winged it--an outraged, pained, and very inhuman shriek echoed behind us as we ran.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and fired at it, hoping that it wasn't a cat or some nice old lady taking her trash out as I yanked Relena down another random street, between two apartment buildings. My knee gave a twinge of protest at the abrupt direction change.

"I can't...keep running," Relena gasped out. There was another blur of movement ahead of us. I fired a shot and we turned away from it.

"You have to. I can't carry you." I gave her wrist my best version of a reassuring squeeze; I was being serious. If she went down, I'd have to try to carry her and keep running. I wasn't going to leave her behind. It was bad enough that we both might get killed, hunted to our deaths...but dying because someone left you behind, too worried about saving their own kiester? Not going to happen.

I didn't know where this new street would take us, but I did know that with each step, we were drawing away from the questionable salvation of a public place. I didn't like it, not one bit...but I also was not about to turn around and head back. If we kept running away, we'd probably get killed. If we turned around and went right back at them, the chances of death were 100.

That's when I saw it--a brick wall right in front of us. It made sense now; they probably could have jumped us at any time, but it would have allowed us too much opportunity for movement and escape. So they'd run us right into a blind alley.

Fuck me.

I jerked Relena to a halt. She didn't bother asking why; she only leaned against one of the walls surrounding us, panting harshly and looking like she was gearing up to puke right on the street. I would have liked to, but I had more pressing matters on my mind--like not getting killed. The wall belonged to another apartment building...while I might be able to scale it, there's no way Relena would be able to, and I had a feeling I might not like what I found on the roof anyway. There were no doors in any of the walls, no fire escapes or convenient stacks of crates, boxes, garbage bags, or rolls of abandoned carpet. Movies are such liars.

The only way out was the way we had come. Shit. I grabbed Relena's wrist again and pulled her away from the wall, only to discover that our only way out had vanished too.

There was a dark shape in the mouth of the alley, and it definitely wasn't Santa Claus.

I hooked one finger around the chain of my cross and pulled it out from under my shirt. Relena was looking at me wide-eyed, completely confused. She didn't know what was in the alley with us; to her, it just looked like a person. "Duo--"

Whatever she was going to ask was cut off; the minute my cross was out, it started glowing with the white-hot, angry intensity of a magnesium flare. The...thing...at the end of the alley shrieked and cowered away, covering its eyes. It was pretty young; the old ones wouldn't react nearly that violently. Not bad...it was wonderfully refreshing to be going up against something I actually had a chance of beating in a halfway fair fight.

Thanks to the glow of my cross, I could see it pretty well now; it was male, dressed in a black fishnet shirt and black leather pants. Really, black seemed to be the theme of the day; his hair was black, I could see his fingernails were painted black, and I was betting he was also wearing lipstick, and it would be black too. Real subtle, that. Some day, I would really like to meet a vampire that doesn't look either like something that just walked out of a history museum or a goth punk's wet dream.

"Duo Maxwell!" the vampire kinder-goth had to speak pretty loudly, since he was turned away from me. "Please put the cross away. I just wish to speak with you."

"Funny joke, man. What about your two little buddies, huh? Are they just here to talk to? If you want to talk, why the hell did I just spend the last twenty minutes doing a killer aerobic workout?" I bared my teeth in a nasty grin, even though I knew he couldn't see me. It just felt good.

The kinder goth ignored my questions, probably one of the best ways on the planet to annoy the shit out of me. "Put your cross away. You will not be harmed."

"What about the girl?" I instinctively pulled Relena a little closer. I could feel her arm shaking under my hand. She might not have had any idea what we were up against, but she obviously had at least figured out that something was very wrong. "No deal." I took a couple steps toward the vampire. Satisfyingly enough, he moved back.

"We just wish to talk," the vampire said. "Our master sent us with a message for you."

"You can tell me just fine without looking at me." I said. "So you're going to be a good little messanger, say what you have to, and then stand aside before I puncture your sorry ass because it's in my way."

"Our master said that we were to give it to you face to face."

"You master has one hell of a sense of humor, then." I said. "Who is it? The Master of Tokyo? The Master from Berlin?"

The vampire actually chuckled. The sound was very dry, like stones sliding past each other. "Khushrenada..."

Mother fucker... Something large and heavy hit me from above, knocking me face first into the brick floor of the alley. I saw nothing but bright red and yellow stars for a minute as my forehead and nose took the brunt of the fall. Dimly, I heard the sound of Relena screaming, then being abruptly cut off.

The thin, cold line of a knife slid across the back of my neck, under the chain my cross hung from. There was a sharp, bruising jerk, and the chain snapped. Shit. The vampire on my back moved the knife to one side, scraping it across the ground -- trying to get the cross, I guess, to toss it away.

Between the bruise on my neck, the thing on my back, and the blood free-  
flowing out of my nose, I was having a tough time breathing. While I still had the oxygen necessary to stay conscious, I relaxed completely. The vampire obliged me by relaxing as well, still distracted by trying to get the cross away. Good boy. I threw myself to one side, rolling the vampire with me, and I was free of him.

The vampire, large, blonde, and not particularly intelligent looking, fell into a befuddled heap, giving me a few precious seconds to react. Somehow, my right hand found the chain of my cross, and I flung it at the vampire. It hit him in the middle of the chest, prompting a round of shrieking and clawing at the cross, which was shining like a nova and starting to smoke. I didn't bother with finesse; while the monster was still trying to escape the burning, I took aim and fired, point blank range. One in the head, and he stopped shrieking. Two in the chest, and I was satisfied that he was dead. I and the wall behind him were covered with blood, bits of bone, and what little grey matter he had possessed.

A hand grabbed my wrist with nearly bone-crushing force, and the gun got ripped out of my fingers and thrown away, skittering across the alley and disappearing from sight. There were bigger problems on my mind, though. /Shit./ The vampire that had me by the arm swung me around, toward the wall. /This isn't good./ I managed to turn enough that I didn't hit the wall with my head; instead, I went sliding down the wall, gasping for breath and essentially immobilized. The black-haired kinder goth was in front of me.  
/Damnit, Heero, you were supposed to be my backup, and you deserted me/

The kinder goth drew his hand back and slapped me. It was like getting smacked in the cheek with a baseball bat; I was suddenly on my side and seeing stars. There was a white blur to one side; it resolved itself into Relena. Her eyes were wide open and blankly staring, her mouth frozen in a perfect little "O" of shock. I couldn't tell if she was breathing or not, but there was blood down the front of her shirt, trailing down her neck--way too much blood. /Damnit, I can't take them on myself/ There was a dark shape above her; a vampire, blood streaked down his chin. He was laughing.

A hand roughly grabbed my collar and hauled me back upright, while another hand on my chin jerked my face to front, so that I was staring into the eyes of the black-haired vampire. "This will teach you to disrespect us." he hissed. "Beg for my kiss, scum, or I kill you now."

I managed a weak grin. I had a feeling he was trying to pull the ol' eye trick on me, and I knew it wasn't working. "You breath smells like old blood," was all I could to get out.

I got another slap for my trouble, and then I was on the alley floor again, stunned. My shirt collar was jerked down, sending buttons bouncing across the bricks as they were popped off. /Oh God.../ The sharp pinpoints of fangs began to sink into my neck, and damnit, it hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before. I would have screamed if I'd been able to dredge up the breath for it. This was not happening, this could not be happening, nuh uh, no way, not me... /Oh GOD! DAMN YOU, HEERO! HELP/

Suddenly, the vampire jerked away from me like someone had just grabbed him, and threw himself backwards. He was clawing at his chest, whimpering like he was in pain. The whimpering got louder and louder until he was screaming--

He burst into flame. Bright blue-white flames leapt out of him, consuming everything. He didn't get a chance to scream again; he was gone in less than ten seconds, reduced to a shadow burned into the alley wall and a greasy pile of ash on the bricks.

Holy shit.

That's when I realized that there was one vampire still unaccounted for -- the one that had Relena. No time to go into puzzled brain lock. I struggled to my feet, staggering down the alley toward where my gun had been thrown, almost certain that I wouldn't get there in time.

I didn't. But then again, I didn't have to -- something else happened. Just when I thought things couldn't get any scarier, they did.

A roar echoed down the alley. That's right. A roar, the kind you never hear outside of nature shows, circuses, and zoos. Except I'd never heard one quite like this anywhere -- it sounded too damn PISSED. The primitive part of my brain, the throwback to the days when humans still had opposable toes and lived in trees, said "EEK!" I definitely seconded that particular opinion. Without hesitation, I threw myself to the alley floor, somehow managing to land on top of my gun because I'm just lucky that way. It's like falling on your keys, but much, much worse.

I rolled over and struggled to my feet, bringing my gun with me. Even though I did manage to point my gun at it, what I saw at the end of the alley was enough to make me fall back on my ass. I wasn't the only one stunned. The last vampire was still over Relena, her wrist held in his hand, halfway to his mouth. He'd stopped moving when the other vampire had burst into flames, and was still frozen now.

There was a tiger in the alley. A fucking tiger, white as bleached bone instead of orange.

The only problem was, I'd never seen a tiger that big, not in pictures and not in the zoo. Maybe it looked bigger because I was so scared, but I doubted that. For a long, silent moment, it stood at the end of the alley, half in the light, its lashing tail the only thing about it that moved at all.

The vampire dropped Relena's wrist and then started to stand. It was like a cue; the insant the vampire moved, the tiger let out a low, rumbling growl...and leapt. All I saw was a huge, white blur hit the vampire. There was a scream, then a crunch and a wet tearing sound. Something came rolling down the alley, slowing to a stop as it neared me.

It was the vampire's head. Just his head. The neck was torn raggedly, still seeping blood, and it had a singular look of fear in its wide, dull eyes.

Soft fur brushed lightly against my cheek, and I froze, not even daring to breathe. The scent of blood was heavy and very close. I felt more than saw the tiger go past me, toward the end of the alley. It sprang, jumping to the /oh my god/ top of the building. I saw its tail flick one last time in a movement that looked curiously amused, and then it was gone.

I stared after it for a long moment, trying to wrap my mind around the idea of a tiger that obviously did not like vampires wandering the streets of Tokyo. There was a soft whimper from Relena's direction, and I forcibly pulled myself together. I had to go check on her, see how badly hurt she was.

It wasn't as bad as I thought, but also definitely not good. The vampire had rolled her under before it bit her, so she hadn't struggled and made the things worse, but she had lost a lot of blood. I untucked my shirt, and, grimacing, ripped a large strip from the bottom of it. I was just going to have to find out whoever had thought up this particular attack and send them my damn uniform bill.

Relena didn't move as I gently wrapped the makeshift bandage around her neck. She just stared at me, her eyes wide and lost. She was much too pale-  
it was like the time I'd seen a dead dove on the side of the road; all the blood on the white feathers looked very wrong. I realized, then, that I wouldn't be able to get really mad at her again. I finally got it. In the end, no matter how much power she was given or how mature she tried to act, she was still a kid.

"Hey," I said softly, "you going to live?" I gave her a crooked smile to let her know I was joking with her.

She stared at me for a long moment, and then managed a weak smile. "I don't feel very good," she whispered. Tears began to slowly seep out of her eyes, running down her cheeks to mix with all the blood.

I tied the bandage off, pulling as little as possible. "It's ok," I said, "I wouldn't expect you to. Do you think you can walk?"

"I don't think so." she whispered back, biting her lip.

Crud. "Alright." I nodded. "I'll carry you. It's okay. Just give me a second." I stood up, planning to go look for my cross. She gave me a look of absolute terror. "Don't worry, I'm just going to get my cross. I might need it. I'm not leaving. Watch." I tucked my gun back into my shoulder rig, then went over to the corpse of the vampire I had killed. I had to peel the cross out of a blackened patch on his chest. Ew. A little sterilization was going to be in order before I wore it again. I shoved it into my pocket and headed back over to Relena. I was feeling more steady on my feet now that I'd gotten my breath back, thank god, and I still had enough adrenaline in my system that I was pretty sure I could get the both of us down the road to civilization...and help.

She managed another smile when I knelt down by her again. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"It's okay." I put on my best reassuring grin, because, to be honest, I wasn't really sure if it was okay or not. "Listen to me though...I'm going to get us to help, and they're going to end up taking you to the hospital. You can't tell them what happened." It was pretty much a tribute to how drained she was that she didn't even protest. "If you tell anyone what happened here, they will find you and kill you. They don't want anyone to know about them, and if they want you dead, no one in the world will be able to stop them."

"Except for you." The sudden, complete trust in her eyes hurt.

"Maybe not even me." I shrugged. "But I'm not going to be around to protect you. Trust me...if I were, it would only put you in more danger. So you have to keep this quiet. Make something up. Tell them a thug with fake teeth tried to rob you or have his way with you. Just do not tell anyone the truth." I gave her a stern look. "Understand me? Promise? Nod for me, or I'm not taking you anywhere."

After a long moment of hesitation, she nodded. "I promise."

I slipped my arms underneath her and picked her up. She was surprisingly light in my arms; I'd expected her to be heavier, since she wasn't all the much shorter than me. She wrapped shaking arms around my neck and rested her head against my chest as we set off down the street, heading for civilization. 


	17. Chapter 17

Pyractomena Borealis Part 17

Relena and I caused quite a stir when we finally made it to the street with all the neon that I'd seen before. The amount of screaming the sight of us provoked was actually kind of gratifying, though the milling, confused crowd that seemingly materialized out of nowhere was downright annoying. I didn't bother to be polite--I was too damned tired, so I just shoved my way through until I found a blue plastic bench next to a bus stop, where I sat down with Relena still cradled in my arms. As strange as it sounds, I was actually too fatigued to even manage to let her go. As for Relena, if she even noticed we'd reached our destination, she gave no sign; she was too busy clinging to my neck. I wasn't even sure if she was still conscious.

We were suddenly surrounded by hundreds of concerned people, all of them trying to talk to me at once. I normally don't have any problem with Japanese, but it never has been my first language...with everyone trying to talk over each other, it sounded like meaningless radio chatter. One woman who looked like she was maybe a year or two older than me even reached out and held a handkerchief to my nose, which was still sluggishly oozing blood. I gave her a grateful smile, which was most likely obscured by the handkerchief, and said, as loudly as I could, "Someone please call an ambulance. We were attacked."

The response was immediate. Cel phones appeared out of nowhere -- everyone had one. There was a quick discussion on who exactly would call the ambulance, since it seemed like a bad idea to swamp the board with a bunch of calls for the same emergency. I ignored everything that was going on and concentrated on figuring out how the hell I'd get out of this. I wasn't really that hurt...just a bunch of bruises and a severely puffy nose. I didn't need to go to the hospital, and I definitely didn't want to. Being the savior of Relena Peacecraft was something that would bring me a little too much attention, thankyouverymuch.

Ambulance response was fast; just what I expected in Japan. Before I knew what hit me, Relena was pulled out of my arms and gently set on a stretcher. There seemed to be some consternation over what to do with me, so I finally stood up and said, "It's ok, I can make it under my own power." That was all I had to say; the shorter of the paramedics grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the back of the ambulance, slamming the doors shut behind me. 

"You might want to hold on now," was all he said before he turned his attention to Relena, who was now unconscious.

I didn't have a chance to sit down; the driver tromped the gas and I lost my balance. The only thing that kept me from cracking my head against the side of the ambulance was a quick grab at an overhead cabinet. The paramedic only glanced up at me to make sure that I hadn't pulled anything down on top of myself before he went back to the task at hand, namely jabbing a needle into Relena's arm. I just grimly hung on and listened to the siren wail overhead.

A couple minutes later, the driver slammed on the breaks and brought us to an abrupt halt. I managed to keep to my feet and not hit anything harder than my head. The paramedic wasn't quite as lucky; he crashed, shoulder first, into the metal wall separating us from the driver. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he yelled.

"Sorry!" the driver called back. "There's a kid in the street!"

"What?"

"There's a kid standing in the middle of the street! He just appeared out of nowhere...I had to slam the brakes or I would have hit him."

"What the hell?"

The driver leaned around the wall, worry and complete puzzlement clear on his face. "And he's still there."

That had to be my cue. I only knew one person, other than myself, that would be ballsy or stupid enough to play chicken with a speeding ambulance. I shoved off from the ambulance's side and tried to figure out how the hell to get the door open.

"Woah, kid, what are you doing?" The paramedic stood up and started toward me. "This isn't our stop."

I'd kind of hoped that he'd just let me go, but I should have known that a paramedic would be the responsible adult type. I'm not proud of what I did next, but it was all I could think of--I drew on him. He stopped in his tracks the minute he realized he was staring down the barrel of a fairly large caliber handgun. "Sorry, man," I said, "but it looks like this is mine."

He blinked, his eyes getting very wide. "Ok, let's talk about this, kid...just put down the gun. You're not going to be in trouble or anything..."

I grinned at him to show there were no hard feelings. He probably didn't notice. "No, man, you're not getting it. Just trust me...it'd be better if you forgot I was ever here. It'll keep you out of trouble." I didn't think he'd leave me out of his report--hell, I'd probably get a report of my own--but it was worth a try. The guy was just doing his job and didn't need to get Oz dropped on him. "Thanks for the lift guys. Take good care of the girl." I gave up fiddling with the door and simply kicked it open, then jumped out and slammed it shut behind me. 

Before the guys inside had a chance to decide to be noble and really stupid, I ran out of the street and into a nearby alleyway. A couple seconds later, the ambulance went roaring off, siren once again in full cry, and I slumped back against the wall behind me. The brick was cool against my back, and it felt pretty good; I hurt all over, and my legs were trembling for no apparent reason.

I knew someone was in the alley with me the instant they set foot in. I also knew, without having to look, that it was Heero. Call it psychic powers or psychosis, I just had a feeling.

"Duo," he said. There was a deceptively warm edge in his voice, the same one there always was right before he started lecturing me or yelling at me. Heero was being an unhappy, angry little camper for whatever reason.

Like I gave a rat's ass.

"Heero," I cut him off, "where the fuck were you?"

"What--" he stopped, one word into his tirade. I couldn't see him in the darkness, but it was pretty easy to imagine his facial expression; wide-eyed, blinking rapidly with surprise, mouth pursed in a prissy little "o"...kind of like my history teacher when someone shot him in the back of the head with a spitwad.

"What the hell were you thinking?" I demanded, shoving off from the wall. "You're my partner, man. Partner. That means you're supposed to watch my back, like I watch yours. We all agreed to stick together while all this supernatural bullshit was going down, didn't we? So WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?"

"I--"

"You were running away!" I stalked toward where he was standing, relying on my instincts to keep me from tripping in the dark. "From a girl. A normal human girl. I don't give a shit HOW much you don't like her and how freaky she is with her whole obsession thing, that still doesn't give you the right to dessert me! I was relying on you, man. Not only did I have to deal with Relena on your behalf, I also almost got killed!"

"But--"

I stopped directly in front of him. I was so close that I could feel him breathing--and unlike me, he could breathe through his nose. That little fact managed to piss me off even more. "Thanks to you leaving me in the lurch, our grand 'only hope for peace' is in the hospital, a quart low and with two holes in her neck. She was so close to getting killed that she's probably going to have rug burns from sliding down the steps toward hell!" I jabbed him in the chest with my index finger. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been so angry.

"I--"

Another sharp poke in the chest stopped him before he could say another word. "And like that's not enough, my only uniform shirt now has vampire brains splattered all over it!" My voice cracked, and I stopped, for once in my life at a complete loss for words.

"Duo." His voice was back to sounding angry.

I still couldn't think of anything to say, so I did the next best thing.

I punched him.

It could have been due to the darkness, or maybe because I subconsciously realized I was overreacting and coming perilously close to crossing the line, but I didn't hit him square on the jaw like I'd been intending.  
Instead, my fist struck a glancing blow to his cheek. Before I had a chance to pull back, he grabbed my wrist hard. I winced, more out of anticipation than actual pain; I'd seen him nearly crumble bricks in his bare hands a couple of times. It wouldn't take a whole lot of effort to crush my wrist. Oddly enough, though, I still didn't regret trying to hit him--if I was unhappy about anything, it was that I hadn't landed a more solid punch.

"Let go of me," I said, a little surprised at how cold my voice sounded to my own ears, "right now."

"Don't try to hit me again," he said just as coldly.

I jerked my wrist back, and, surprisingly enough, he let it go. "It depends," I said, "on if you're planning to bug out on me again or not."

He seemed at a loss; it took him a minute to come up with what he said next. "I've never deserted during a mission."

I couldn't help but feel hurt by that. "I'll remember that next time we're on a mission. It's nice to know there's some time I can trust you."

Heero took a step toward me. "Duo--"

As much as I would have liked to, I didn't want to hit him again; I had a feeling I wouldn't like what happened if I did, and as pissed as I was, shooting Heero still wasn't that appealing of a prospect. Instead, I turned on my heel and stalked out toward the street, toward where my sense of direction told me that the school was.

Heero grabbed my shoulder before I'd taken more than two steps. "Wait--" My shirt squished unpleasantly under his fingers; the blood on it was still nice and wet.

I didn't even bother looking back at him. "If you want to keep that hand, you'd better let go."

Heero relinquished his hold like I'd burned him. That was just fine with me. I stalked off back toward the school. I was tired, I was covered with blood, and all I really wanted to do was sit down for a few minutes, but my sensibilities had been terminally affronted and I'd be damned if I'd give Heero a chance to say anything to me. I didn't look back once.

Thankfully, I managed to avoid everyone on the streets. Good thing, since I really didn't feel like having to explain why exactly I looked like I'd just shot someone at point blank range. Civilians get real twitchy about that stuff. The dorms were locked and dark by the time I made it back, which wasn't a problem at all. Rather than waste the extra second picking it, I simply unlocked it with the spare I'd had made one day when I stole the janitor's key ring. Hey, you never know when you might need something like that.

As I stalked my way down the hall toward my room, Wufei poked his head out of his door. He must have been sleeping; his hair was disheveled and sticking up in odd directions. The minute he focused on me, his eyes widened and he opened his mouth to speak.

I stopped for a minute and looked at him. "Wu, you're my friend, and I say this with the utmost affection and respect, but fuck off. I don't want to talk about it."

I always said that Wufei's a wise man, as young as he is. He withdrew into his room without speaking.

I had my ruined shirt peeled off before I was even all the way into my room. It got dropped into the black plastic trash bag that Heero and I kept our more incriminating trash in. I knew I'd have to take it out pretty soon, or it'd start to stink, but I figured I could deal with that later; all I wanted right now was a nice hot shower.

In the shower was when it really his home. The vampire had said 'Khushrenada' when I demanded to know who his master was. Treize. The glorious Master of Tokyo. After all his talk of wanting me on his side, or not working against him, he'd double crossed me. He'd tried to have me killed, and he hadn't even done a good job of it.  
What the fuck was wrong with him.

I glared at my reflection in the steam-wreathed bathroom mirror as I dabbed antibiotic ointment on the scrapes on my face. The fucker had wanted me to pick a side. Fine then, he'd accomplished his goal.

The hell with waiting for the next day. I didn't take kindly to people that tried to kill me. Payback was a bitch. 


	18. Chapter 18

Pyractomena Borealis Part 18

Heero was smart and didn't show his face in the room until after I'd had my shower. He walked in without a word while I was pulling on my pants and sat down at his desk, powering up his laptop. Even out of the corner of my eye, I could tell that what I'd said to him had hurt what feelings he showed pretty badly; he was sitting more stiffly than normal, and just by looking I could see the muscle knots starting up in his neck. Most people wouldn't have noticed. Then again, most people didn't spend as much time with Heero as I did, or spend as much energy observing him.

I didn't say a word to him as I finished getting dressed. Mostly dressed,  
that is. I was again shirtless, and I didn't feel like wearing my mission clothes if I was going to be tramping through the streets of Tokyo to see dear little Johannes. I grabbed my rig and gun, then fished a knife out from under my bed and stuck it in my sock. Heero looked at me curiously,  
and I flipped him off. He got the hint.

Five minutes later, I was banging on Quatre's door. He was the only one that wore even close to my size, so I'd have to borrow from him. The door opened a crack, revealing a brown eye instead of the expected blue; Trowa.  
He opened the door the rest of the way when he saw it was just me, albeit a half-naked just me. He was wearing his usual long-sleeved shirt in spite of the warm night.

"Duo," he said. "What's going on?"

I grimaced. "I need to borrow another shirt from Quatre."

He raised an eyebrow delicately. "Quatre's out. Isn't it a bit late?"

"Yeah." I said. "I guess Heero didn't give you a situational update, huh?"

"No."

"Peachy. Very nice of him." I curled my lip. "Relena showed up while we were out, and he ran out on me. Shortly after, of course, we got attacked by vampires. To make a long story short, my shirt is history."

"I see." He stood aside, indicating with a sweep of his hand that I should come in. "Come for a moment."

"Look, man, I really don't want to talk about it," I said. "So can I just borrow a shirt, please?"

The look he fixed me with was much harder this time. "You're giving me a headache." Even with the non-sequitor of his words, the tone booked no argument.

The scary thing about Trowa is that you can never tell if he's speaking figuratively or not.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was inside, sitting gingerly on the edge of the desk. "Sorry," I said rather awkwardly. "We all have a pain, I guess. The name of my pain is Heero."1 I couldn't figure out why Trowa wanted to talk to me. Out of all the guys, he was the one I was the least close to. We didn't dislike each other by any stretch of the imagination, but we'd always just sort of avoided each other for whatever reason.

Trowa shut the door behind me and leaned against the wall. "Heh." He raised an eyebrow at me. "Do you think you might be taking it a little too hard?"

I slammed my hand down on the desk. How the hell could he know what really happened? But he and Heero were all buddy-buddy. I guess that sat around and were quiet at each other or something. "Yeah, you're damn straight I am. Up until now, I worked alone. Now I'm used to having backup, and what happens? The guy who's supposed to watch my back turns tail and scampers because he can't take some girl having a crush on him." I rested my head on my hands for a moment. "I'm pissed at Heero for deserting me, because I know for a fact that I wouldn't desert him like that. Even worse, I almost got myself dead because I was stupid, and it scared me. I don't like being scared."

I shut up after that and just sat, waiting for a lecture on why I should calm down and apologize, since I was being such an unreasonable ass. Instead, Trowa said nothing. When I finally chanced a glance up, he was tracing a line of the door's wood grain, a meditative look on his face.

"I think," he said, "that you're both wrong." A very small smile crept onto his lips. "You're more alike than you'd think."

I couldn't help but snort at that. "No wonder I want to kill him half the time." Somehow, that little snort lead into a chuckle, and the anger that had been seething inside me slowly relaxed. I was still pretty unhappy, but I no longer felt like ripping Heero's head off and pissing down his neck.

Trowa chuckled softly. "You'll need to resolve this soon. We can't afford for you two to be bickering."

"I know." I leaned back so I could glare at the dusty ceiling. "And I know I can't just kill him either, so I'm going to have to get over it and patch things up. Sometimes he's too damn stupid to figure it out on his own. That doesn't mean I have to like it, though."

"No," he agreed, "you don't have to, as long as you do it."

"Shit," I muttered, looking back at him. "Look, Trowa, as grateful as I am for this minor session of head shrinking, I need to go. That's why I came by. Just need a shirt so I can head out."

"Where to?" Trowa asked. He didn't feel the need to state the obvious, that I wasn't supposed to go anywhere without backup. Smart man.

"The vampires that almost killed me... one said his master was Khushrenada"  
That brought my anger flaring back in a sudden rush, but it was aimed at the right target now. Trowa's eyes narrowed slightly, and I continued,  
"The fucker just tried to stab us in the back. I don't play at that. So fuck him in the ear. I'm going to hand him over to our new friend Johannes on a silver platter, and I'm going to do it with a song in my heart." Sure, he'd said that if we killed him, bad things would happen, but he'd also said he wasn't going to try to kill us if we kept quiet about him. I shouldn't have been so surprised that a vampire was a damn liar.

Trow walked over to the closet, where he fished one of Quatre's shirts out and tossed it to me. "I'll go with you," he said.

The adrenalin filled flight with Wufei nearly a week ago had left our route pretty much etched in my mind. Some things, I do have a decent memory for. It wasn't hard to return to the lair of Johannes, a place in the theatre district that was shrouded in plastic tarps and scaffolding, in the process of being turned into God knows what. The whole way, Trowa stuck to my back like glue, looking deceptively relaxed. You had to hand it to him, he was taking the district a lot better than Wufei had.

As we approached the entrance of the theatre in progress, a familiar hulking shape dropped down from the scaffolding. Tony. He smiled at me like he was greeting a long lost friend. "Hi, Duo," he said, waving one hand. "Who's your friend?"

It was at that moment that I realized Tony was probably not the brightest LED in the control panel.

"This is my associate Trowa," I said. Might as well be polite. "Trowa, this is Tony. He's one of Johannes' monkey boys."

Tony laughed. "Not a monkey," he commented. "But anyway, nice to meet you,  
Trowa. What brings you guys here today?"

"As shocking as it might seem, business," I said. "I know your boss gave me a whole week to decide what to do, but what can I say, I got it figured out a bit early, so I figured I'd come and see him now. Hope he's got some time in his busy schedule."

"Alright, let me go check," Tony said. He let himself in the front door,  
its glass panes covered with strips of masking tape.

I glanced at Trowa and shrugged. "I think Tony's a bit... special," I murmured.

"I see," Trowa said.

A moment later, Tony reappeared, still giving me his toothy yet somehow innocent smile. "The boss said sure, he's got time. But you have to wait here." He pointed at Trowa. "Sorry."

Somehow, I couldn't imagine Johannes saying anything as poorly bred as 'sure'  
I glanced at Trowa. "I'd be a lot more cooperative if you let me bring him along."

"The boss said I'm not supposed to let you bring any friends." Tony shook his head, his weird eyes catching the glow of the neon around us. 

Trowa shrugged after a long moment. "I suppose I don't have a choice, then." I could tell he didn't like it. Neither did I.

Tony smiled, happy we'd gotten that taken care of. "Also, the boss said that you're not supposed to have weapons with you. So you can leave them here."

That got a grimace out of me. I really did not like the idea of being separated from my weapons, but then again, I had a feeling that I didn't have much of a choice. It was either willingly disarm myself or get Tony's help. No thanks. I pulled the Browning out of my shoulder rig, double-checked it to make sure the safety was on, and handed it to Trowa. "I'll be back to get this."

Tony cocked his head to one side. "And your cross and your knives, too."

I kept my face neutral. "What makes you think I'm carrying those?"

"'Cause I'm the one that disarmed you last time." His smile turned into a full-blown grin.

Damn. I blew out a frustrated sigh before I slipped my cross over my head and tossed that to Trowa. One look at Tony told me that I really didn't want to play it innocent and pretend I had no knives, so Trowa was soon in possession of another weapon.

"Ok, disarmed and ready to go." I managed a flat smile. "Take me to your leader."

Tony grinned back at me. "Follow me, then," he said. Instead of taking me in the front door, he lead me into the alley between this theatre and the next.

I waved to Trowa before I lost sight of him completely. "Don't wait up, honey!" The remark got a snort out of Tony, which was fine with me. I knew Trowa had understood...I'd just told him to go back and gather the rest of the guys if I didn't return in what he deemed to be a reasonable amount of time.

The muscle man and I wound our way through a labyrinth of back alleys. It took a lot more effort than I'd want to admit to keep from breaking out in a cold sweat. Yeah, I knew that alleys were, by definition, pretty narrow, but the ones in Japan...well...let's just say that I wasn't quite sure how Tony was managing to not get his shoulders wedged between the walls. Maybe he'd criscoed himself or something.

Greasy muscle guy. Ew.

A large, dirty puddle and a vent belching steam later, we came to a ramp, leading up to the back of a brick building. Tony led me up the ramp without slowing down. When I grabbed the railing to swing myself on behind him, it flaked beneath my fingers, leaving streaks of red-brown rust behind. I grimaced; rust looks like dried-up blood to me. It's not a color I like.

Tony held the door open for me, then crowded me down the hall to everyone's favorite not-a-storage room. I managed to grab the doorknob a split second before he got to it. Point for me. I can open my own damn doors.

"Good evening, Mr. Maxwell."

I stopped in the doorway. Only a hand on my back prompted me to move forward enough to let Tony in. Johannes was sitting at his desk, and Angelo was in his usual place by him, but there was a small, mousy vampire sandwiched between them. On Johannes' other side, there was a vampire who had short brown hair and looked like he should have been the field goal kicker for some all-star football team. Next to him was a shorter, paler guy with carroty red hair, who wasn't a vampire but had to be something pretty darn similar, and another generic, black-haired vampire. They were all looking at me expectantly.

I really hadn't been planning on an audience.

"Introductions are due, I suppose," Johannes smiled politely. He was looking perfectly groomed, as normal. Today he was wearing a blue shirt with lace on the cuffs. "since we shall be working together." He pointed to the mousy vampire. It took me a moment to recognize him as the one that had tossed me head first into a wall a week ago. He'd looked big and bad then; right now, he just looked like a little yappy dog that had just piddled on the carpet; shaky, guilty, and waiting for the rolled-up newspaper to descend. "This is Tomas, who I am sure you still remember. He has seen the error of his ways, and is ready to apologize for his bad behavior, I believe."

Tomas winced; if he'd been human, I would have expected him to break out in a cold sweat. "Yes." he said, "I apologize. I was wrong to attack you. Please forgive me." His words didn't reach his eyes; I hadn't seen a look of hatred so clear since...well...a couple hours ago. Yessiree, it's Duo Maxwell on 'How to make friends and influence people.'

"Yeah, sure, no problem. Just a misunderstanding. Apology accepted." I muttered.

"Very good." Johannes gave me a paternal smile before indicating the dynamic duo on his right. "This is Master Harris, and his servant Feld. They have kindly joined us from America." No one made a move to introduce the vampire next to Feld. I was guessing that he was a flunky.

"Hi...nice to...meet you." I did my best to keep my face neutral. Johannes hadn't so much as blinked when he'd introduced them, but I got the distinct impression he wasn't happy about them; his voice had gone from neutral to downright chilly. I really didn't need things to get more complicated.

"The pleasure is all ours." Harris said.

"Now that we are all so nicely acquainted," Johannes leaned forward, resting his arms on his desk, "let us get down to business. Mr. Maxwell, Tony said that you had something to tell me...?"

My lips suddenly felt very dry. I really didn't want to help these guys, but on the other hand, Treize had just peed all over me in a serious way. Oh yeah, and then there was that whole school leveling thing. "If I tell you, you'll leave us out of it, right?"

"Correct."

"And the school, too."

"Correct."

"And you'll just go off and fight amongst yourselves, right?"

"Mr. Maxwell, I do not have all night. Either tell me or accept the consequences of your inaction."

"I hear you. Calm down." I blew out a sigh. "The Master of Tokyo is Treize Khushrenada."

He sat up quickly, scattering the cloisonné pens that had been lined up neatly next to his blotter. I watched one of them roll across the desk and fall over the edge. "Khushrenada." Johannes said quietly, "Do you think to toy with me?"

I stared at him dumbly for a long moment. The only way his reaction could have been any weirder was if he'd suddenly transformed himself into a singing potted plant. "What?" I finally managed.

Johannes almost visibly relaxed, throwing the conversation back on track. "You said that it is Khushrenada?"

"Yeah." I scratched my arm. I wasn't sure if it was all the vampires in one place or the fact that Johannes had his panties in a twist about something, but I felt like I had the world's worst case of static cling.

"Very interesting." He leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on his stomach. The lace on his cuffs covered everything but the tips of his fingers in a snowy pile. "Do you know where he is?"

"Not for sure," I said, feeling very uncomfortable, "but he's Oz's head honcho. How many places could he be?"

Johannes nodded. "Indeed." He lifted himself bonelessly from his chair and walked around the desk, which revealed that he was wearing skin tight black leather pants. He had pretty nice legs for a guy that had been dead for 800 years. "Thank you for your help, Mr. Maxwell. Your school is now safe." He stopped moving when he was about a foot away from me.

"Great. What about the rest of the world?" I did my best to edge back without appearing to edge back.

Johannes laughed. It was a warm, surprising sound. "That remains to be seen," he said. "I think you will agree that no battle is certain, or necessarily with end."

I nodded.

"I suppose I could always ask for further assistance." Johannes smiled. "But I think you are far more trouble than you are worth."

"So I've been told."

There was that laugh again. "You'd be best served to stay clear from us from now on if you don't wish to be involved." Johannes' hand shot out faster than I could really see; before I had a chance to react, he had pulled me toward him, his fingers worked into my hair. I started to push him away, as ineffectual as I knew that was, right when he leaned down and planted a very gentle kiss on my forehead. "Go home, Mr. Maxwell, and enjoy your vaunted neutrality." He released me so quickly that I lost my balance for a second and stumbled back, almost running into Tony.

Things were taking a sudden dive into the Twilight Zone, and I knew a dismissal when I heard one. "Thanks," I said, not sure how I meant it. Tony didn't even have to push me out the door; I was more than ready to go.

As I made my way back toward the outside, I couldn't help but think. I'd done it. I'd saved the guys and everyone in the school. All I'd had to do was rat out my worst enemy. Bonus, right?

Right?

The metal door out seemed very heavy as I pushed it open, and it left more spots of rust on my palms. All I knew, as it slammed shut behind me, was that I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd just made a very, very big mistake.

1 Yep, shameless Batman (original movie, not horrid sequels) homage. 


	19. Chapter 19

Pyractomena Borealis 19

The door slammed shut behind me and I shoved my hands in my pockets. "Great," I muttered as I stalked back the way I'd come, "I couldn't get normal enemies that just want to kill me. Oh no. I have to get ones that want to invade my personal space and weird me out."

It felt like the walk took less time than before, probably because I didn't have all the anticipation piling up on me. I caught sight of Trowa as I slipped out of the alley. He was leaning against a lamppost, head down and face in shadow. The pose was a disturbing mixture of Hollywood gangster and dollar store whore that only Trowa could pull off and look good while doing so.

The back of my neck prickled, and Trowa's head snapped up. His eyes were wide with shock as he shoved himself away from the pole, running toward me. One hand was reaching under his jacket, going for his gun. "Get down, Duo!" he yelled.

Don't have to tell me twice. I dove for the concrete without a second thought. If it was bad enough that Trowa was acting startled, I probably had one of the Dukes of Hell hot on my tail.

As it was, not even the evasive action helped. A strong, clawing hand grabbed my ankle and assisted my impact on the ground. I managed to break my fall, but I still hit hard enough to leave my hands tingling.

A woman started screaming. "Leave that boy alone!" She was followed by a cry of "Someone call the police!"

"More like a fucking exorcist." I muttered. I drew my free foot up and slammed it back with all my might. A body part went 'crunch' under my boot heel and the thing that had me shrieked, letting go. I scrambled toward Trowa. He had my gun, which made him my best friend. People were milling around me, some yelling, some just looking confused. To them, it probably just looked like a fight between a punk and a couple of school boys. Not anything to get into too much of a panic over.

"Duo!"

I looked up, just in time to see Trowa tossing the Browning toward me. It made a nice silver arc in the street light. I dove at it and actually made the catch, oh miracle of miracles. The safety went off with a 'click' and I spun back to face my attacker...

It was 'Generic Vampire A' or whatever the hell his name was, the one that had been standing next to Feld. The bottom dropped out of my stomach for a moment as I stared at him. He was smirking, fangs peeping out of his mouth. We'd been betrayed. Again. How stupid and naïve had it been of me to expect anything else out of a bunch of fucking blood suckers?

"Maxwell," the vampire hissed, taking a step toward me, "greetings and thanks from my master."

"You're welcome," I said. "Kiss my ass any day."

He tensed, ready to leap, and I started squeezing back on the trigger, knowing that Trowa was doing the same. The vampire was so fucked--

Then a woman stepped from the crowd and stood between us, facing the vampire, her arms outstretched. I jerked the gun to one side, firing into the crumbling brick wall of a building. She flinched slightly, but didn't move otherwise.

"Please stop. I will not let you harm these children," she said, voice polite and firm. Her outstretched hands were shaking. She was tall for a Japanese woman, very statuesque, and clad in black vinyl pants and a shiny red shirt that was streaked black by the nearby blue neon. There were multitudes of thin silver bracelets on her wrists, and silver streaks were dyed into her hair.

"No, lady, you don't want to do this..." I whispered. For a moment, the vampire hesitated, and I hoped that he'd be distracted enough to back off.

It wasn't to be. The vampire flung himself at her and she went down with a despairing scream. For one long moment that I knew I'd always damn myself for later, I simply watched in shock as blood began to spread across the sidewalk.

Just a moment, though. Then I was running forward, my foot connecting with the vampire's face and kicking him away. Ivory colored teeth scattered across the concrete. He sprawled out on the ground, and before he had a chance to so much as twitch, I emptied the clip into him.

It was chaos, then. People were running away, trampling each other, all of them screaming. I could hear sirens in the distance.

"Duo, we need to go." Trowa pushed my gun toward the ground. "Now."

I numbly shoved the gun into my shoulder rig and turned back toward the woman. There was a large, gaping tear in her throat, and blood everywhere. Not caring, I knelt down by her and gently touched her cheek. There was still a spark of life in her chocolate colored eyes, but it was fading quickly. Tears were pooling in her eyes.

There were tears in my eyes too. "I'm sorry," I whispered, as I watched her die, "I'm so sorry..."

Trowa grabbed my arm, hard enough to bruise. "Duo, we have no time."

I took enough time to close the woman's eyes, then stood. We both took off running, and not a moment too soon. The sirens were nearly on top of us. This was not a situation I wanted to explain to anyone, much less the police.

I grabbed Trowa's arm in a crushing grip of my own as we ran. I was caught in a rage that transcended everything I'd ever felt before in my life. I wanted to kill something, and so badly that Trowa almost looked like a tempting target before I managed to insert a little logic into my own mind. "Get the guys." I said. "I have a couple things to arrange. We're going to pay Treize a visit."

Everything that had felt wrong over the last couple hours fell into place. It had all been a trick, a dirty little trick by Johannes that I'd fallen for, hook,  
line, and sinker. Treize wouldn't have sent a vampire after us that looked like a kinder-goth punk. It'd all been a setup, and I'd fallen for it like a chump.

Maybe it was the ice in my tone or the fact that I was leaving a sizeable bruise on his arm, but Trowa didn't argue or discuss. "Affirmative."

"We'll meet outside of Tokyo Base in one hour." I let go of Trowa's arm and split off in a different direction, leaving him behind.

Someone was going to die for this.

"I sincerely hope you have a good explanation for this, Mr. Maxwell." Treize said, reclining gracefully in his marble throne. "I am not accustomed to being at the beck and call of sixteen year old terrorists." Lady Une was at his side as always, chin propped on his leg. She let out a languid yawn, revealing a set of very even, very white, and no doubt very sharp teeth. The leather was royal blue this time, and her pose was almost causing her breasts to pop out of the bustier.

I fought down the 'Kiss my ass' that was on the tip of my tongue. Now was not the time to let my rage get the better for me. I needed tact and diplomacy if I was going to get what I wanted. Boy was I screwed. "You want Johannes? He's yours."

Treize raised an eyebrow slightly. "What precisely has prompted this spate of...generosity?"

"He double crossed me." I said bitterly, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

"You revealed my identity to him, didn't you," Treize said, not acting the least bit surprised, "and no doubt gave him valuable clues on how to find where I reside."

I cursed internally. I should have expected it. "I'm a fucking moron," I said bitterly. "I let him play me like a fiddle, let him trick me into think you'd stabbed me in the back. And I thought hey, what the hell, it's not like I have a choice anyway."

"There is always a choice, Mr. Maxwell."

The calm attitude was starting to really get on my nerves. "He was going to kill a lot of innocent people because of me, Treize. What the hell would you have done?" I was hard pressed to keep my tone civil.

Treize leaned forward in his seat, pinning me with a sharp, crystal blue gaze. "I am intelligent enough, Mr. Maxwell, that I would have never gotten myself in to such a bind."

I started forward, not even thinking of what I was doing until Quatre grabbed my arm. Une let out a warning growl, and I made myself take a couple of deep, calming breaths before speaking again. If my mouth got me killed, I wouldn't be doing anyone a favor. "Do you want him or not?"

"Are you asking for my help?" Treize had a bemused smile on his face. I wasn't fooled.

I almost bit my tongue in half in the process, but I managed to get it out. "Yes. I'm asking for help."

"If we are to be allies, Mr. Maxwell, albeit temporarily, this will not be a one-sided deal."

I'd known it was coming. "What do you want in return?"

He gave me a long, hard look, then favored Wufei with the same. Something about the hooded expression in his eyes made me very, very nervous. If whatever he wanted involved blood or pants around the ankles, I was out of here. Better to take my chances against Johannes and his monkey boys.

I didn't have to worry. "I want you to find and destroy the person that has been burning my children." he said.

That I could do. If I were really lucky, whoever I caught would end up being the person that had been trying to blow me up, too. "Deal," I said. Hopefully it wouldn't be anyone I knew.

"I trust that you will not think to cross me as you have crossed Johannes." Treize said.

I shivered at the threat in his voice. "The thought would never cross my mind." I said, and I meant it. I'd already fucked up enough.

"Excellent." He beckoned, and two vampires came up the steps. I recognized one of them as our buddy Ivan. "We will have to do this properly," Treize said, "if we are to minimize...casualties. Tell Ivan where Johannes can be found. We will send a messenger."

I told Ivan the back alley route that Tony had taken me through. He made a quick sketch of it, then sent the other vampire to fetch a city map. We compared the two, coming up with the name of a theater--Black Sabbath, an old rock café that had been converted to a dance hall. Not the one under construction after all. We waited while Treize wrote a letter and sealed it with wax the color of blood, which he handed off to Ivan's flunky.

Ivan stayed with us as we watched the vampire disappear down the massive staircase. I looked over at him. "Now what?"

His reply was a shake of his head. "Now we wait."

And wait we did. It was probably only a couple hours, but the time passed like cold molasses. Treize simply sat in his throne and might as well have been a part of it for all he moved, with Une snoozing lightly on his knee. I guess great age breeds gobs and gobs of patience. It didn't do a whole hell of a lot for my nerves. For the most part, I was even too pissed to talk, as scary as that sounds. We all simply waited in silence, to see what reaction Treize's note of...whatever...would bring.

After nearly two hours of silence, I just couldn't take it any more. "Ivan, how much longer is it going to be?"

Ivan started, then blinked slowly a couple of times, as if he were coming out of a light sleep. "I do not know," he said, pulling a gold watch from one of his pockets, "but I cannot imagine it will be too much longer. Dawn is only a short ways away, and I doubt he would wait until tomorrow to give us his answer."

"What exactly did Treize send him, anyway?"

"An...offer." Ivan hesitated, "An offer to talk about their differences peacefully, and, failing that, for the two of them to take their grievances into a more private battle. The Master dislikes wasting his resources."

"He's being pretty direct for the Treize we all know and love," I muttered.

Ivan looked as if he were going to answer, but instead, he turned sharply and peered down the staircase. "Master," he said, "they are coming."

"Thank you, Ivan." Treize crossed his legs, suddenly acting like he was alive again.

As alive as a vampire gets, anyway.

Ivan carefully ushered the five of us to one side. "You may witness," he said, "but do not speak. This is no longer your concern." His expression was carefully blank and still, the way only vampires could manage, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was worried. Something had gone wrong.

A vampire walked up the steps, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the problem. He wasn't our guy. He was blonde, to start with, and was wearing a laced-up peasant shirt and black leather pants. Even more worrying, he was carrying a piece of silver work that looked like a small soup tureen. Call it a hunch, but I didn't think he was here to serve us a round of gazpacho.

The blonde vampire made an elegant bow to Treize. "I come bearing an answer from my Master, and, through him, the high council."

Treize waved a lazy hand. "You may proceed."

Without another word, he took the lid of the urn and poured a pile of thin grey ashes on to the marble floor. Three gold buttons fell out as well, barely recognizable and melted from intense heat.

"That was a mistake," Treize said, voice soft, "I hope you realize that, my Johannes." He shot a quick look at Ivan, then stood. I hadn't thought it was possible, but he looked even taller, more like a colossus that should have been straddling a harbor than a big gulp sized motivated corpse. Without thinking, I reached for my gun.

"You must go now." A very worried looking Ivan blocked my view for a moment. "Now. This is no longer a place for you." He began to herd us all toward the steps.

Wind suddenly sprang up around us, tearing at our clothing with animalistic ferocity. I caught a glance over Ivan's shoulder and almost tripped over my own feet -- Treize was floating a good five feet above the floor, with his eyes glowing like blue neon. Une let out a shriek and fell to the floor, writhing as if she were in excruciating pain. All I could do was stare as her skin almost seemed to melt, re-forming into new lines...

A woman with short black hair darted out from behind Treize, her eyes glowing the same bright blue. She grabbed my shoulder, almost crushing it in her grasp, and jerked me into a 180. "Get them out of here, Ivan!" she screamed, trying to be heard over the wind.

Ivan snatched my wrist in one gloved hand and forced me into a dead run down the stairs. The first few steps, I nearly lost my balance and fell, still trying to look over my shoulder...then the screaming started, laced with the sickening sound of bones snapping and joints tearing apart.

I didn't need any prompting to run, then. None of us did. It felt like an eternity, but we kept running down the stairs, never letting ourselves falter against the unnatural gale. The sounds behind us didn't lessen, if anything, the longer we ran, the louder the screams became. Below us, the wolves began to howl, adding to the cacophony.

Then we were at the bottom of the stairs, and Ivan manhandled all of us out of the door. He was out of breath, red-tinted sweat running down his forehead. "Do not forget your promise to my Master..." he gasped out, hanging on to the door frame for dear life.

"No--"

I didn't get a chance to finish my sentence. The wind tore his fingers from the door frame, and Ivan was literally sucked back into the room. The door slammed shut behind him, cutting off the wind and the screams as if they'd never existed.

We just stood there and stared for a long moment, before a picture fell off the wall, sending a cascade of glass shards across the carpeted floor.

Quatre finally spoke. "Duo, please tell me that this was all a really fucked up dream, and that I'll wake up in a minute."

I wished I could. I really wished I could. 


	20. Chapter 20

Pyractomena Borealis Part 20

"So this is what we have." I looked down at the map, which lay spread out across the desk in the room Heero and I shared. Its curling corners were held down by empty clips, of all things. "Ivan gave me all the locations before all Hell broke loose."

The guys all bent to examine the map. Wufei reached out and traced lines between the neat red circles, searching for some pattern.

I wished him luck. I'd been staring at the damn map since I'd finished drawing the locations on it, until the stark white and black started giving me a headache. The pyro attacks were spread in broad lines across Ginza, Akihabara, and Ueno, the central eastern part of Tokyo. I'd marked the Oz base off to one side with a large blue square, near the royal palace. There were three more circles, those bright green, that Ivan hadn't given to me. One was in Ikebukuro, the other two in Roppongi--the incidents of pyrokinetic activity that I had personally witnessed.

"I think that we can discard this one," Heero said, tapping green circle in Ikebukuro with a fingertip. He carefully avoided looking at me. "since this occured in the presence of that witch. I still believe that she caused it in some way."

"I am not certain if that is a valid assumption, but I agree that it should be discarded-the same with the locations in Roppongi." Wufei said. "Neither of them fit into the region we're concerned with, and neither involved Treize's people. It may be easier to find a pattern if we save those for later exploration."

"Fine." I shrugged. "Whatever works." I still didn't think there was something there. I'd tried, damnit! I'd penciled a previous version of the map to death, searching for some kind of distinct shape in the nearly thirty locations. No spirals, rays radiating from a single central point, or ghostly pentagrams. Thank you, reality, for once again thumbing your nose at Duo Maxwell.

"We know that Treize is in Ginza, on base," Quatre said, "so it makes sense that his supporters are near him. What I don't understand is why there haven't been any incidents to the west." He shook his head.  
"Johannes is somewhere in Shinjuku, right?"

I nodded. "We know Treize's supporters are fairly spread out, though. I'm not going to to make the mistake of assuming that Johannes is sticking to just one location."

Wufei appeared to be deep in thought again; he had his chin balanced on one fist while he stared at the map. His fingers were drumming quietly on the table, something I'd never see him do. The drumming increased in tempo and volume steadily until we were all staring at him.

"What is it, Wu? You look like you're chewing on something tough," I said.

Wufei narrowed his eyes. "There's something..." he reached out and tapped a spot in Ginza, right by a cluster of red circles. "Isn't there a subway station here?" his finger traced southeast on the map, stopping at another spot surrounded by red circles, "And here as well?"

A jolt of recognition hit me. "Do one of you guys--"

"--here." Trowa interrupted me, holding out a much folded piece of glossy paper.

"Thanks man." I unraveled the paper and smoothed it flat, revealing the colorful mass of spaghetti that represented the Tokyo subway system. Quatre crowded in next to me, and we both bent to examine the map.

"There it is!" Quatre cried after only a few seconds. "The Toyoko line..." his finger traced a grey line through the mess from its start. It went right through the area we were looking for, taking a leisurely circle around the Oz base.

"Even better." Trowa said, cutting Quatre's triumphant crows short, "the Tokyo monorail runs from the Shinjuku area to Ebisu, where a switch to Toyoko can be made."

I looked at the map, an odd smile playing over my lips. "And from there, it goes to Roppongi before heading along to Ginza." I laughed. "So there's our source for the dickweeds that attacked me and Relena!"

"Or even a possible second base." Trowa looked up, his eyes shining.

"Hot damn." I grinned. "Wu--"

"--this station is fairly well surrounded by attacks." Wufei said, interrupting me. He'd all ready known what I was going to ask. "it's very possible that they will be moving on to the next station today."

"Can't be certain, though." I clapped my hands together. "So, since most of the fires were during the day, I guess we split up and try to cover the areas before dark. Look for suspicious people and all that."

"Just don't look too suspicious yourself." Wufei said, the corner of his mouth twitching. "With all of these fires, the police are no doubt out in force, looking for the same thing as we."

Quatre shook his head. "You know," he said, "for someone powerful and supernatural, this pyrokinetic is being very mundane."

"Don't complain too much, Q...maybe he's on a budget or something. He's making things nice and easy for us." I shrugged, suppressing the urge to whoop with joy. This wasn't going to be nearly as tough as Treize had lead me to believe. "You, Trowa and Heero take the next station, since it's going to have the bigger area to search. Wu and I'll take the near station and see if we dig up anything there. We'll go in with radios hot, since I doubt we'll have listeners--makes maintaining contact more simple."

Trowa shot me a sharp look when I picked Wufei as my partner instead of Heero, but didn't say anything. I was grateful for that. I still wasn't quite ready to talk to Heero, and that would sure limit our usefulness as a team. "We'll grab the Meguro line--two stops, and we can change to Toyoko. Let's go, guys!"

We only had a few hours until sunset when we arrived at our appointed location. Wufei and I did a sweep around the area without spotting anything other than already burned buildings. We couldn't even get too close to the buildings, since they were surrounded by yellow fire line tape, and each had at least one police officer. They hadn't even really been cleaned up; apparently, the arson investigators were being kept so busy that they were pretty far behind.

I had to feel sorry for the arson guys. They could probably tell that the fires weren't accidental, but there also wouldn't be any accelerant or other indication of how the fire started--assuming I understood how pyrokinetics worked, of course.

The dying sunlight was turning the buildings around us rich oranges and reds when Wufei and I made our way back toward the subway station. It was a little discouraging that we hadn't found anything, but considering the size of the city, it'd been pushing our luck to think we'd score information on our first try.

I hit the call button on our radio, figuring that I'd contact the other guys while Wufei was doing one last check of the area. "Zero-two to zero-four."

"Zero-four here. What's your status?"

"Big fat nada, man. What about you?"

"Same here, zero-two. No--" There was an abrupt pause.

"Zero-four, come in."

"Zero-two, we just had an explosion." Quatre's voice said calmly. I could hear sirens in the background, shrieking through the radio. "We're going to investigate."

"We'll join you shortly," I said. "If you can't get in close to the fire, meet us at the station. We'll contact you when we get there."

"Affirmative."

"Out." I hooked the radio back into my waistband and cast around for Wufei. He had said he wasn't going to search far, but he wasn't within my line of sight any more. A cold shiver of fear ran down my spine and I grabbed my radio again. "Zero-two to Zero-five. Where--"

"I'm right here, Duo," Wufei said, popping up behind me.

I yelped and almost dropped my radio. "What the hell are you trying to do, Wu, get yourself shot at? Jesus." I carefully put the radio back, trying to shake the 'Oh Shit!' feelings of impending doom I'd been having just a moment ago. "I got a hold of Quatre--"

"--I know. I heard." Wufei looked serious, even for him. Way too serious. "Before we leave, I think I've found something. Come."

Puzzled, I followed him away from the train station, to a nearby apartment building that had been gutted by fire. We veered off at the last instant to go into a basement ramen shop. It was a pretty old place, all dark wood and smoke-stained ceiling, which sucked up the light coming from the overheads and the few windows in the front. It was also desserted except for a couple of secretive businessmen, probably since the dinner rush was past. Wufei paused for a moment so that our eyes could adjust to the dimmer light before continuing on, heading straight for the back of the restaurant.

We stopped at a two-person table near the tiny hallway that lead to the bathrooms and what was presumably a janitorial supply closet. There was a tiny Japanese girl sitting at the table, wrapped in a stained, ivory-colored shawl. Her head was bowed, revealing several tiny braids in her hair that were woven with glass beads.

"Aria." Wufei said, his voice surprisingly gentle.

The girl looked up, eyes wide in her pale face, making her look like the Japanese version of a French porcelain doll. There were tear streaks on her cheeks. There was also an odd scent on her that was purely mental -- it took me a moment to recognize it. I guess I'd just been hanging around so many older-than-dirt vampires that I had a hard time noticing the weak, new scents.

Repelled, I took a step back, reaching for my gun. The girl threw herself at me with a frightened whimper. She clung to my legs and began crying, babbling 'Please don't hurt me!' in an unending stream. At the same time, Wufei grabbed my wrist with an iron grip. "Don't," he growled.

I gave Wufei a long, hard look before holding my hands up. "Okay, fine. Mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

Wufei reached down and grabbed the girl by the arm and hauled her to her feet. "Control yourself," he said sharply.

That's Wufei. Sure got a way with the ladies.

It worked, though. The girl, Aria, took a gulping breath and stopped being quite so vocal, at least. Tears were still running down her face, and she was shaking like a leaf. I suddenly felt really bad, like I'd just kicked a puppy or something .

"Sit," Wufei said. Without pausing a beat, Aria sat. "We will not harm you. Will we, Duo." He gave me a sharp glance.

"Yeah," I agreed, "of course not."

"I'm so sorry," she said. Her voice sounded as thin as the rest of her looked, and it was full of catches that could only have come from a prolonged round of screaming. "I just saw...and assumed...I've heard very terrible things about Mr. Maxwell."

Internally, I flinched. "It's okay, really," I said. I reached into my jacket again, but this time, I brought out a wadded up handkerchief. It'd seen better days, but hey, better than nothing. She took the hankie from me with a watery smile. "So, can you tell me why Wufei here thought it was so important for me to see you?"

Aria nodded, dabbing tears from her face with a shaking hand. "I used to live in the building next door," she whispered.

"Were you witness to the fire?"

"Yes. Yasuhiro and I...we were sleeping in the basement, since it was during the day."

I glanced at Wufei, who shrugged. How nice, it was up to me to grill the girl. "Who was Yasuhiro?"

"My human lover." Aria looked up at me. There was finally a spark in her dead eyes, as if she were daring me to say something disapproving.

I wasn't going for that bait. "Okay. So you were in the basement."

"It was nearly sunset, because I was able to wake. The room felt very strange and hot, and I wanted to leave right away." she said, her lower lip beginning to tremble. "I reached over to wake Yasuhiro, and he"  
Aria covered her eyes with the handkerchief, her thin shoulders shaking.

"He burst into flames, right?"

All she could do was nod.

I let out a low whistle. "Then what?"

It took her a minute, but she went on. "He started screaming and screaming. I tried to put the fire out, but I couldn't. I was afraid, because if I touched it, I would die too. So I ran. The shadows in the alley between these buildings were dark enough that I got here safely, and I hid in the supply closet."

"Was there anything unusual?"

Aria let out a bitter laugh that was far too old for her looks. "What, other than the fire itself?" she shook her head. "I didn't see very much, and I remember less...I was so frightened. I remember that there was no smell of gasoline or matches when the fire started. I also remember that I saw an American man as I crossed the alley, standing near the fire. He had very odd, orange hair, I think. That's all I know."

I glanced at Wufei and he gave me a very slight nod. It was all the story that he'd gotten out of her as well, so if she was lying, she was lying consistently to the both of us. "Do you know what Yasuhiro did for a living?"

"He worked at the military base. He was a soldier." she answered without hesitation.

Well, that made sense. "Thank you for the information." I said. I wanted to just turn and leave, but at the same time, it didn't seem right to not help her, for all that she was a vampire. "You got somewhere to go?" I asked.

She shook her head.

I sighed. "If you want, I'll buy you fare to Ginza. Go to the Oz base. I can't imagine they wouldn't give you a place to stay there, if you don't mind the fact that you'll end up working for them."

"All right," she whispered, subdued once more. "I have no other options."

Yay me, Duo Maxwell, savior of maidens everywhere. Whoopdee shit. "Come on, then."

Wufei and I walked Aria to the station, since it was now dark enough for her to be out, and put her on the next train heading for Ginza. As soon as the train was off, I yanked the radio up off of my waistband.  
Quatre and the rest were probably wondering what had happened to us. "Zero-two to zero-four," I started.

"Duo." Wufei grabbed my shoulder. "Look across the platform."

I turned, suddenly having a very bad feeling about all of this. Static crackled out of my radio. Across from us stood an American man with short, orangey-red hair. I recognized him instantly from the night before--the vampire Harris' human servant. Yeah, Feld.

"Wu--"

Wufei was all ready dragging me toward the station's exit by the sleeve. The air around us was beginning to feel hot, almost to the point that it was painful to breathe. Without any other option, I dropped the radio and drew my gun, taking aim. Shoot first and ask questions later sounded like a good idea to me.

The pedestrians around us got the idea that something was very, very wrong. As a mass, they started to move for the exit, the sounds of panic becoming louder and louder. I half-tripped over a little kid, standing in place and screaming for his mommy. I grabbed him by the back of the shirt, yanking him along.

Feld had his eyes closed, a look of ecstacy on his face. His hands were down by his sides, fingers spread, and slowly he brought them up, as if drawing up something from deep below...

The platform exploded in a blaze of fire and light, showering us with chunks of concrete and ceramic tile. I shoved the kid forward, out of the way of the debris. "Wu, get him!" I yelled, pointing at the kid. I turned, bringing the Browning to bear on the source of it all.

Feld shouted over the sudden, hungry roar of the fire, and there was another explosion, closer. It yanked my arm out of Wufei's hand, throwing me backwards, onto the tracks. Somehow, I managed to twist enough in midair to avoid the electrified rail.

One thing, at least. The air was cooler down by the tracks. I drew in several painful breaths I tried to remember just how to breathe after that impact. But shit, where was Wufei?

I rolled and stood, throwing my arms up onto the platform and tried to scramble up. Heat seered my skin. I closed my eyes against it, ineffectually.

Another explosion. More tiles and concrete shards showered down on me. There was a tortured crack, and then another. Then the hideous groan of dying metal, twisting and overstressed. Our of instinct, I dropped, rolling under the lip of the platform, going for the scant protection that it offered.

Concrete and steel thundered down around me to cover the tracks, leaving me choking on dust in the darkness.

I was buried. 


	21. Chapter 21

Pyractomena Borealis Part 21

Someone was coughing. It took a minute before I realized that it was me. My throat felt like it was on fire, and my chest was tight and heavy, like I'd just breathed in a lot of bad shit.

I opened my eyes, and it didn't make a damn bit of difference. That was right, concrete thundering down around me. I closed me eyes, so I could at least pretend it was just a game of me being blind as a bat, and felt around with my hands. Enough space to sit up. Enough space to stretch out under the lip of the platform. Maybe half a meter from side to side. I was buried alive.

Panic rose up immediately, trying to overwhelm me. I'm not a big fan of enclosed spaces. With a curse, I slammed my fist into one of the concrete shards. It bruised my knuckles and split one of them open, but the pain gave me something to hold on to.

"Calm the fuck down, asshole," I muttered. I made myself take a deep breath, and then another. I was blind, but I still had other senses. I could still hear. I settled down and listened, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart, sounding loud in my ears.

I got a dull roar, the sounds of a firestorm. The dim sound of klaxon fire alarms.  
This was good. It meant the layer of concrete burying me wasn't too deep, if I could still hear. And it also meant the concrete was saving my ass right now, keeping me from getting cooked.

Damnit, I just had to hope that Wufei had gotten out. Wufei was many things, but fire-proof was not one of them.

I took my time, feeling out my concrete prison, finding all the cracks in the rocks, pushing here and there. When one shove got me a lump of concrete on the foot for my trouble, I decided to let it be for a minute. I was getting air. I could survive until the fire died down and someone wandered my way.

Right on cue, the roaring over my head subsided. I stopped, barely even breathing,  
and listened with all my might. Footsteps. The murmur of voices. The thin sound of a kid crying. These were all good signs. And then I heard another murmur of sound, its tone familiar. Maybe I was just lying to myself so I'd feel better, but it sounded like Wufei.

I experimentally shoved at the concrete above me again. There was a shower of dust that got in my eyes, making me say some really foul words. When I'd finally teared up enough to see again, there was a tiny crack overhead. It let in a thin bit of light, and a waft of dubiously fresh air that smelled like dust, burnt flesh and hair, and overheated rock.

"Wufei?" I called. I had to hope those voices were the good guys, and they were looking for me, lead by Wufei. I shoved at the concrete again, smart enough to close my eyes this time. I was rewarded by the crack getting a bit wider, though from the way the rubble was grinding together, I wouldn't get it to move from that angle again. I half stood, back pressed against the underside of the platform, and put my ear to the crack.

"...suggest you come with us," an unfamiliar voice said. It had a strange accent, and hissed at the sibilants. For lack of anything better, I mentally labled the guy 'Hisser.'

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you," Wufei said. Good boy, Wu. Never go with strangers that offer you candy.

"My compatriot is too polite; don't think that you have a choice," said a second voice, also male. I decided to mentally call him 'Bob' since he didn't really have any other defining characteristics.

"Be that as it may, I still will not go with you," Wufei said.

"You are hardly in a position to fight us," Bob said. "Surely you'd prefer to reach your destination in one piece?"

"The master said he only had to be alive..." Hisser commented. "Didn't say uninjured." There was the sound of movement. What the hell... why wasn't Wufei running? He couldn't be that far from the exit. "What is this he has behind him?" Hisser asked, his voice a sickening little sing-song. "A child... how sweet and tender..."

"Don't even think about it," Wufei said, his voice cold.

"Oh, but I already have," Hisser replied. "Come here, little one, I promise that it will feel like a dream..."

Things got confusing then; I couldn't really tell what was happening just by listening. But I heard the sounds of struggle, and fighting. The child started crying, the sound becoming more frantic with each passing second. I could imagine Hisser perhaps trying to lure the kid away, and Wufei holding him back. I knew how that worked.

Experimentally, I shoved at different areas of the rubble pile, dislodging cascade of dusk that made me cough and wheeze. I cracked my head on the rubble and the edge of the platform several times, but I didn't care. I needed to get out, needed to help Wufei. And the fucking concrete wouldn't budge.

"NEVER!" Wufei shouted.

I'd been trying to keep sort of quiet while I was a sitting duck, but that was a bit much. There was so much defiance and fear in that one shouted word. "WUFEI!" I just about screamed. I didn't know if he'd even hear me.

Then the screaming began.

I couldn't help myself at that point. I could tell that it was Wufei screaming, and considering the ungodly pain tolerance he had...it just didn't bear thinking about. As I continued to batter away ineffectually at the concrete, tears ran freely down my cheeks, mixing with the dust that was everywhere in my little prison. I couldn't take the sound of my best friend on the stinking planet howling in agony. "WUFEI!" I screamed again. I doubt that anyone could have heard me over it all.

And then came something that I will never forget, not if I live a million years. There was a roar of primal rage that sent me to my knees, covering my ears and cowering like a frightened child. Wind shrieked past the crack in the rubble, filling my little prison with flying dust and an unearthly chill. There was more screaming, but this time, it wasn't Wufei--the voices belonged to Hisser and Bob, and the sounds they made could only be compared what I'd heard earlier, when Treize had begun rending the hapless messenger limb from limb.

It went on and on, until I swore it would never stop.

I couldn't say when the sounds stopped. The sensory overload left a dull roaring in my ears that faded only slowly, until I could finally hear the high, thin wail of terror that had to belong to the little boy. "Oh God, no..." I renewed my attack on the rubble. Blood was running thickly from my hands, cut open on the jagged edges of the concrete. With a barely suppressed scream of my own, threw myself against the rubble again, and this time it moved just a little. The crack widened enough for me to get my hand out. I didn't even pause to think. I tore frantically at the crack, trying to widen it more. "Wufei, you idiot! You God-be-damned IDIOT!"

"Who are you calling an idiot, Maxwell?"

I stopped my frantic digging for a moment, and shoved my face against the crack. I could see out with one eye. And I just about fell over with relief at the sight of Wufei. There was a fleur-de-lies shaped burn marring his chest above his left nipple, but otherwise, he appeared unharmed. It should be noted that he was also suffering from a complete lack of clothing. Naked or not, I'd never been happier to see him in my life.

Wufei slid picked his way carefully down the rubble that lay over the tracks, pausing for a moment to sit on one of the large concrete blocks. He was panting like he'd just run a marathon.

"What the hell did you do, Wufei?" I demanded. "Are you okay?"

"I'll live, Duo... I'm just very tired, suddenly." Wufei shook his head. "I believe that I'm uninjured."

"What happened?" I asked again.

Wufei put his face in his hands. His fingers were clutching at stray wisps of hair. "I...don't remember," he ground out.

"What do you mean, you don't remember?" I shook my head. Wufei of all people - he had a mind like a fucking steel trap.

"I mean I don't remember!" Wufei's voice rose to a pained shout. "I remember fighting the first... I remember the other pinning me, and them burning me, but nothing else." He shook his head, his shoulders beginning to tremble, "I don't remember any more. I can't!"

"Okay... okay, Wu, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. But right now, I need a hand. I can't get all this shit moved on my own. Can you help me out?" I swallowed down the five million questions and anger and worry, doing my best to keep my voice calm and soothing.

Wufei took a deep breath and then nodded.

"Okay. Good. Let's get going..." It took a lot longer than I wanted to think about to get a space big enough for me to wiggle out of cleared. All the while, I had visions of new vampires creeping up on us, ready to jump Wufei again and do God knew what to him. Wufei barely had the strength to stand, but between the two of us, we managed to shove enough rubble out of the way. I wiggled through the crack the minute it was big enough for my shoulders, leaving plenty of shreds of clothing and skin behind.

"This is too fucked up," I said, trying to shake some of the dust out of my hair while serruptitiously checking Wufei out for wounds I might have missed with the limited view. Nope, nothing. I untucked the rathe abused shirt and unbuttoned it, handing it over to him. It was better than nothing, even dirty and full of holes, and thankfully long enough to cover the important bits.

Wufei let out a bitter laugh before I continued, "Let's go find the other guys. We should get to the Oz base. We know who Treize wants now, so we can serve him up on a fucking silver platter, and that'll take care of half our problems, right?"

"I don't care where we go any longer, Duo," Wufei said, "as long as we leave here, now."

"No problem. I'm not exactly attached to this... what's left of this station either." I looped Wufei's arm over my shoulders and we slowly picked our way up the rubble heap, onto the platform.

Right into a room of carnage.

I'd been expecting burnt wreckage, cracked stones, corpses halfway to being cremated. What I wasn't ready for was the fact that everything was covered with a fine red mist, turning the entire room a dark, dirty red. Someone had liquefied Hisser and Bob and sprayed them across every available surface.

I felt breakfast, lunch, and dinner all high tailing it for the escape hatch, but managed to control myself. Wufei made a heaving sound that I wasn't particularly enamored of. "Chew it down, Wu. We don't have any more clothes."

Movement caught my eye, drawing me right toward the little boy I'd hear, who was curled up in a ball against a pile of rubble. He was alive and didn't have any obvious injuries, but he was also covered with gore like everything else in the room. I settled Wufei down on a pile of rubble temporarily and then knelt in front of the kid, trying to think of anything to say. I finally settled on "Yo."

He looked up at me, sudden intelligence flooding into his eyes. It wasn't the look of a kid, that was for sure, but I knew all too well that blood ages a person. "Are they gone?" he whispered.

It says a lot about how fucked up a kid's gotten when he doesn't even notice that there are little bits of someone's brain in his hair.

I nodded. "It's okay now," I said. "But we need to leave." Sudden terror flooded into his eyes, so I continued quickly. "There should be a police station somewhere nearby, right? The police will help get you back to your parents."

He calmed down with that. "Okay," he whispered.

I stood, getting ready to pick him up. Suddenly, his eyes widened as he looked behind me, and he let out a shriek of pure fear. I whipped around,  
only to come face to face, not to mention gun barrel to chest, with a very confused Wufei. By the time we got ourselves sorted out, the kid was gone, fled up the cracked and warped stairs to the street. He was nowhere in sight when we picked our way through the mess after him and made it to street level. I could only hope that he'd gotten himself to safety.

I looked toward the east. There was an odd orange glow on the horizon. It made something deep inside me, that animal part of my brain, very nervous. I dug around in my pockets until I came up with the radio. It was covered with grey dust like everything else, and the LCD was cracked, but it still seemed to work. "Zero-two to anyone listening on this frequency. Come in," I said.

There was a long enough pause that for a moment, I felt frozen with fear. Had they gotten the other guys? Then came a short crackle of static, and, "Zero-one to zero-two. What is your location?"

I would have fallen over with the relief of it all if I hadn't needed to hold Wufei up. "Zero-one, we're at clusterfuck ground zero, but rumors of our death have been greatly overexaggerated. You boys mind swinging by to collect us?" I glanced to the east again. "I think there's a party going on that we need to crash." 


	22. Chapter 22

Pyractomena Borealis Part 22

There was no one else on the train from Roppongi with us, which was to be expected at this time of night – hell, it was only recently that the trains had started running all night, even. It was a good thing, since we weren't exactly looking our best. I was liberally flecked with blood and dust. Wufei was conspicuously lacking in the pants department, though lucky for him, my shirt hung low enough that it covered all of the important parts. I had a few cloth bandages wrapped around my naster scrapes and cuts, thanks to Quatre. It was quite the fashion statement. I had bigger things to worry about, though.

Like the fire we were heading toward.

I'd known it was going to be bad the minute I'd seen the odd, false sunrise orange glow in the general area of the Oz base. It only looked worse the closer we got. There were no longer any stars visible; they were covered by smoke, no doubt. Even the streets were starting to look hazy, and you couldn't escape the acrid burning smell. You could only get used to it.

There wasn't a lot of doubt in our minds as to where the fire had come from, either. Johannes must have decided to make his attack, with his pet pyrokinetic in tow. We also knew that we'd end up helping Treize tonight, and that idea in particular was harder to swallow than anything I'd encountered so far.

This had to stop, though. I could tell myself that I didn't care if the Oz base burned to the ground and took all of its personnel along to hell, but the base was also in the middle of Tokyo, and fire had a real way of spreading. Especially in a city where most of the buildings were still made of wood.

A calm, recorded voice announced our stop, and we stood as one, ready at the doors before the train had even really started slowing. The subway platform was as deserted as the train had been. We headed up a set of stairs, toward the surface--

--and walked into chaos.

Everywhere I looked, there were emergency vehicles, all of them with flashing lights. Firefighters and paramedics wearing yellow hard hats were running back and forth across the streets. More firefighters were manning hoses that snaked in every direction, spraying down walls and roofs that were too near to the fire for comfort. The scene was surreal, every action looking jerky, strobed by the emergency lights.

Then there was the fire. It was busy consuming the barracks buildings near the entrance to the base. Almost nothing was left but concrete shells, and still it burned with unnatural ferocity, sending orange and yellow tongues of flame high into the night sky though the clouds of black smoke boiling off of it. I'd often read descriptions of fire as a living, ravenous animal. I'd never really believed them until now.

The strangest thing was that there were no crews attacking the fires. The base's gates were firmly shut, with armed and gas-masked guards standing in front of them.

I poked Quatre in the ribs to get his attention. "I think buddy Treize doesn't want anyone else coming in to play."

He nodded. "I'm just surprised there aren't military crews out. They should have one on base."

"Who knows what the hell vampires think." I shook my head. "We're not going to get in the front any way you slice it. Let's try heading around the base. There's enough commotion that we should be able to jump a fence somewhere."

It sounded way too easy, but that was what we did. We worked our way around toward the back of the base, dodging well-meaning emergency personnel, until we were by the large, building that housed the military administration above and Treize's little throne room below. The plan went off without a hitch, until we walked into the main entrance.

Johannes was waiting for us, sitting in one of the antique chairs in the waiting area. He looked like a painting where the contrast was a little off; beautiful, perfect, but just a little odd with his bright yellow hair. His hair was smoothed back and tied with a midnight-blue ribbon that somehow managed to bring out the color of his eyes. It matched the vest that he was wearing over his snowy shirt. Tony and Angelo were standing behind him, as always. None of them looked well pleased, though Johannes seemed to be taking whatever the hell the problem was a lot more calmly.

We didn't give them a chance to even twitch. I had my gun trained on Johannes as we walked in the door, and the guys had Tony and Angelo covered. "Don't move." I said.

"Ah, Mr. Maxwell. I have been waiting for you." Unfazed, Johannes pulled a gold watch out of a tiny pocket in his vest. "Though you are running a bit late. I expected you nearly an hour ago."

"Sorry, but we ran into a little delay," I gave him my most elegant sneer, "which you are no doubt aware of."

"Save your hatred of me for another time," Johannes said. "For now, I am not the cause of your troubles."

"Like I'm going to believe that."

Johannes stood gracefully, his eyes almost daring me to shoot him. I was sorely tempted, but I was also pretty curious about what he had to say. "You will have to, I'm afraid. It seems that the Council was displeased by my rate of progress. Thanks to them, the Master of Tokyo's challenge to me was intercepted and refused without my knowledge." He allowed himself a displeased frown. "I would have accepted, Mr. Maxwell. I do not quarrel with anyone but the Master of Tokyo."

"Okay, so let's say I believe you for five minutes. Who set the fire, then, huh? All those fires? Who blew up the damn train station with me in it?"

"Master Harris." Johannes grimaced. "He was sent here to aide me by the Council. That was what I was told. What I did not know was that he had his own directives to follow. I find them highly...distasteful."

"So you're basically saying that he turned on you."

"He was never mine to begin with, Mr. Maxwell. I neither wanted nor needed his assistance." Johannes walked forward until he was only about a foot away from me.

I finally gave up the act and lowered the gun. As much as I hated to admit it, Johannes had some style going. I couldn't make myself shoot him now that I knew he wasn't the one that had been fucking with us. Damn morals, always getting in my way.

Johannes gave no sign that he'd even noticed I'd had a gun out to begin with. "Now that the truth is known between us, I will take my leave."

A little surprised by my own audacity, I grabbed Johannes' wrist as he turned to leave, making him pause. He gave me a piercing look. "So that's it? You're just cutting Harris loose and going on your merry way? No harm, no foul, no interference?"

"I am not involved in this particular battle, nor do I wish to be, Mr. Maxwell. I will meet with the Master of Tokyo, but it will be on my terms and in my own time." A small smile crept across his lips. "You are not the only person here that dislikes being manipulated."

"Heh." I let him go--or tried to, at least. Instead, he captured my hand this time, lifting it so he could inspect the bandage that was wrapped around my wrist.  
Blood had soaked through it.

"Take care not to get yourself killed. I should like for us to meet again." Johannes planted a kiss on the back of my hand. It was feather light; I almost didn't feel it. "Perhaps, if we are lucky, the circumstances will be friendlier." He squeezed a tiny bit of blood from the bandage on my wrist before letting my hand go. There was an intrigued expression on his face as he carefully licked the red drops from his fingertips. A strange shock passed down my spine, and I took a quick step back as his eyes fluttered shut and a blissful smile appeared on his lips. For one second, the air felt so heavy that I almost couldn't breathe.

Then reality abruptly resumed its course. Johannes pulled a crisp handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his fingers off. "Good evening, Mr. Maxwell," was all he said before he and Angelo walked out the door.

Tony hung back for a moment, wearing an expression that I would have called 'shy' on anyone else. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Anything I can do for you?"

The sarcasm was lost on Tony. "Is the girl okay?" he asked.

"Girl?"

"Yeah. Girl. Blonde hair. You were with her a couple nights ago..."

"Relena? She's recovering okay, I guess." I gawked at him, suddenly confused. "How did you..."

Tony gave me a sheepish, pointy-toothed smile. "I thought you looked like you needed a hand. That's all. I gotta go...the boss needs me." He was out the door before I had a chance to collect my scattered wits.

"Duo?" Quatre asked.

I shook my head. It made my brain hurt, it really did. "Don't worry about it, man. I'll explain later." Tony the Tiger. Dear God, frigging shoot me now.

"What now?" Trowa asked.

I shrugged. "You guys can do what you want, I guess. We're not on anyone's side in this mess, so it's not like we have a mission. Treize probably doesn't even need to hear from us, since I think it's painfully obvious who the pyro in this scenario was."

"But," Trowa said. He'd known I wasn't finished.

"But." I flicked an imaginary particle of dirt off of my gun. "I'm not ready to go home quite yet. Harris has gotten himself on my shit list, pretty unwise, if you ask me. I don't owe Treize anything, but isn't this a 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' situation?" I favored Trowa with my best cocky grin. "Besides, I've been fucking keyed up all day. If I don't get to cap someone's sorry ass before I go home, I'm not going to be able to get my beauty sleep."

"Eloquent as always, Duo." Wufei muttered. "Does someone have an extra weapon I can use?"

"I do." Quatre pulled out a Beretta 9mm that he'd somehow managed to hide in his vest and tossed it to Wufei. No one made any move to leave.

Wufei clicked the safety off, nodding to himself. "Then I think we're ready to go."

It didn't take much effort to find our way to Treize's throne room. It was actually accessible by elevator as a sub basement. In Treizey-poo's defense, the elevator's CPU had taken some Heero-style persuading - aka percussive maintenance - before it would take us down there. After Johannes had left, we hadn't seen another person, living or dead, yet. The hall leading to Treize's throne room was no exception. There were no bodies, no burn marks or signs of struggle. Hell, the carpet even looked like it'd just been vacuumed.

That changed when we got to end of the hallway. As we approached the ornate wooden doors, one of them broke in half and the biggest wolf I'd ever seen in my life came busting through it. The wolf skidded across the carpet, stopping only a short distance from us. Its throat was missing. I had to start wondering what exactly I'd gotten us into.

We didn't stop to think or change our minds, though. Like the pack of utter idiots we were, we ran right into the room, guns at the ready.

Someone was waiting for us just inside the doorway, leaping as soon as Trowa, our rear guard, had stepped in. He didn't even blink, just shot it. Once in the chest, twice in the head. We didn't even stop to check if it was male or female. We had more pressing issues to deal with.

Like the fact that the entire fucking room was on fire. The hangings were streamers of flame, and I could see several charred bodies lying across the floor. The air was heavy with the smell of cooked flesh and burnt hair. We moved our way cautiously forward, guns at the ready. We could hear the sounds of heavy conflict ahead, but there was nothing to see yet.

My necro senses gave a little tingle, and I turned to the left, leveling at the nondescript, brown-haired woman running toward me. Not an Ozzie, not a wolf, looked like a good target to me. I shot her in the knee, to slow her down. She screamed an obscenity at me as she fell. A bullet through the top of her skull shut her up.

"Any sign of Treize? Or Harris?" I called back to the guys.

"None--" Quatre started.

And then someone grabbed my arm. My gun barrel was shoved into the soft part of his chin before my adrenaline addled mind realized that it was Ivan.

"Mr. Maxwell!" The relief in his eyes was almost frightening. "The Master said you were coming. I've been looking for you."

"Great, then give us a situational report."

"My Master is currently facing off with Harris and his group. He can't fight them directly, since he is concentrating on keeping our people safe from the fire-summoner." Ivan's hand was shaking on my arm. I noticed that there was blood running down the side of his neck, coming from his hair, and there was charred line marring one cheek. "We are at a stalemate now, reinforcements will be late in coming; the Master will not use the regular troops, and most of our nearby supporters perished in the earlier fires or were driven away."

"Great. Let's get to it." We hurried toward the back of the massive room. The battle sounds grew closer with each step, not to mention it got hotter, until we came upon the heart of the inferno--a massive ring of flame surrounding a group of vampires.

Treize stood on one side. He had seven vampires with him and a handful of his werewolves, all of them locked in combat. His eyes were closed in concentration; every time a tongue of flame from the circle tried to come in close to them, he would make a sweeping gesture, and it would blow back to the fire's main body. The vampire that I recognized as Harris was on the opposite side, fighting with Une. Both of them were the worse for wear; Une was limping and seemed to be having problems with her left hand. Her teeth were red with blood. Harris had a large wound in his chest.

I shook Ivan's hand off. "We can't get through that." I jerked my head at the fire. "We can try to take distance shots, but the conditions aren't what I call favorable." I peered around, searching. We had one easy solution to our problem. "Where's Harris' monkey boy?"

"There." Trowa tugged on my arm, pointing.

He was right. Feld was almost hidden by the wall of fire. He stood on the outside of it, far enough away that he could see the entire fight. His eyes were closed with concentration as well, and a nimbus of blue flame surrounded him.

"Great." I hauled my gun up, took aim for the center of his chest, and fired.

The bullet vaporized before it reached him.

"Tell me that didn't just happen. Fuck!"

Before I could fire again, though, Heero grabbed my wrist, pulling my gun down. "I'll take him," he said. There was a look in his eyes that I recognized. Determined.

And crazy.

"Look, Heero..." I started. The grip her had on my wrist tightened to painful proportions. I got the hint. "Okay, he's all yours. Wufei, can you keep an eye on his back?" I turned back to the main fight, leveling my gun at a vampire with purple hair and a werewolf that were locked in a wrestling match on the floor. The werewolf had its teeth in the vampire's shoulder; the vampire was trying to gnaw into the wolf's neck. "Wolves are the good guys, right Ivan?"

"Yes."

"Fucking great." I pulled the trigger, the peaceful feeling of a perfectly lined-up shot washing over me. The vampire screamed and let go of the wolf, just long enough for the wolf to change tactics and go for the jugular. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"Duo!" Wufei yelled. "I need support fire!"

I didn't like the sound of that. I whipped around to find three vampires between Wufei and Heero. I lined up a shot on one, giving it a breath to click in my mind.  
Then over the shoulder of my intended victim, I saw Feld open his eyes. He smiled, looking directly at Heero, and raising his hands.

I couldn't help it. I screamed. "NO!"

There was an explosion of blue white flame, so bright that I had to look away. Wufei went flying back, rolling to land in a heap. His clothing smoked, still smouldering from the proximity of the heat. But far worse, the fire was centered on Heero.

Smarty pants that I am, I decided to run toward the fire. What I thought I was going to do, I don't know. Nothing could survive that kind of fire. It was still burning too brightly for me to even look straight at it. But somehow,  
in my heart, I could feel it. "HEERO, you dense mother fucker, FIGHT!" I screamed.

And deep in, somewhere between the base of my spine and my kidneys, I felt something old and hot like fire take notice of my words. And it said 'Yes.'

In a soundless explosion that rocked the room and sent me tumbling to my knees,  
almost landing on top of Wufei, the flame blew into shreds, revealing Heero, completely unharmed but for a little ash streaked on his cheeks. The fire reflected in his blue eyes, dancing like a living thing. His normally unruly hair stood on end, and he had his own fiery halo surrounding him, one that red and gold, beating to the rhythm of his - and my - heartbeat.

The gun fell from my limp fingers. My hands seemed to rise of their own accord,  
clutching over my heart. I felt... hollow. Like all the blood was running out of me.

Feld narrowed his eyes. His hand twitched and a tendril of fire sprang from the floor, lashing at Heero. It disintegrated before it touched him. Heero cupped his hands together, his face a mask of concentration. I doubled over, my forehead against the floor, as I fought to take a breath in through the suffocating heat and smoke. Suddenly, the corner of Heero's mouth twitched up into a positively cruel smile. Un-Heero-like, but somehow familiar.

In a heartbeat, Feld suddenly had a look of pure terror on his face. His clothing began to smoke, and his hair. With a scream that tore at my ears, he burst into flame, as bright as a piece of magnesium that someone had just put water on.

Someone screamed, high and thin like a dying animal. I lifted my face from the floor in time to catch another blinding flare. Lady Une went rolling across the floor, her hair singed, as the vampire she had been fighting exploded into flames. Harris disintegrated in the white heart of Heero's red flame, his last words to the world a shrieked curse.

Slowly, Heero fell down to his knees, the cruel smile gone from his face. He looked down at his hands and began to laugh. I'd never seen his shoulders shake before, let alone his hands.

With the death of Harris and his servant, the ring of fire blew itself out with a sound like thunder. Treize stumbled, but caught himself before he fell. He raised one hand and pointed at someone attacking one of his wolves, causing wind to spring up around him...and the vampire in question to start tearing into pieces, shrieking all the while.

With the firefighting done, thought, the blood and life seemed to come back into my body. I still didn't feel entirely together, but it was enough to get me back on my feet. I scooped up my gun, just as I felt the cold rush of energy that heralded an attack.

Two vampires jumped me at once. I shot one, a woman in a yellow dress, before she could touch me. The other, a man in black jeans, grabbed my shoulders and slammed me into the floor. Straddling my hips, he tried yank my gun away from me, breaking my index finger in the process. He looked truly surprised when I flipped out a knife with the other hand and stabbed him in the throat. It wouldn't have been a mortal wound for a vampire, but it surprised him enough that he let go of my gun. I shot him in the head, then kicked him off and pumped one into his chest, right between the nipple rings, for good measure.

What an idiot.

"Duo!" Trowa yelled. Three were mobbing him, and since I was the closest, it was up to me to assist. I ran forward and grabbed a female vampire by the hair, yanking her head back and putting a shot right into her left temple at close range. As she dropped, the second grabbed me by the throat, fingers digging into my jugular veins. Black spots began dancing in my vision as I struggled to dig a fresh clip out of my pants pocket. The used one dropped to the floor and I slammed the loaded one home. Shortly thereafter, the vampire had a severe case of lead poisoning, and I was sprawled on the ground, waiting for the blood to return to my brain.

The last vampire grabbed Trowa by the chin and tried to force him to look her in the eye. He took care of that one himself, shooting her in the hand to make her let go and then delivering the killing shots.

While Trowa was dealing with his own situation, clawing hands grabbed my shoulder from behind, hard enough to cut the skin. "Damnit!" I pulled another knife and tried to stick the vampire in the arm. No dice. My wrist got grabbed and twisted to where I almost thought it was going to snap in two. A wave of heat suddenly washed over the vampire and me jerked back with an inhuman shriek. By the time I got turned around, he was all ready well on his way toward becoming a pile of ash, engulfed in red flames. Across the floor, I saw two more vampires that had been bothering Wufei and Quatre burst into flame. Wufei shot one more vampire, and then, inexplicably enough, there was silence.

I felt another vampire behind me, and spun on the floor, finger all ready pulling the trigger. Only Ivan appearing and yanking my arm to one side saved Treize from getting a bullet in the chest.

"Shit! Sorry. Sorry. Didn't mean to do that." I jerked my wrist away from Ivan and lowered the gun.

Treize didn't deign to comment on almost getting perforated. Instead, he offered a hand up. "You may stand down, Mr. Maxwell." His white gloves where stained with ashes, and there was a faint spatter of blood on one side of his face, but other than that, he was as neat and unruffled as ever.

No buddy-buddy for me. I stood up on my own and made a big show of dusting my pants off.

Treize let his hand fall, making even that movement graceful in a rather unholy way. "Thank you for your most timely assistance."

I waved a hand. "No thanks wanted. We didn't do this for you." Boy, almost getting my ass killed seemed to have a bad effect on my tact. "Don't think this is the start of a beautiful friendship or anything."

"I am not so naive as to want to believe in anything of the kind," Treize said carefully. I couldn't help but feel like I'd put him off balance. Now that was a thought to make my week. Treize extracted a handkerchief from his breast pocket. Absently wiping the blood from his face, he surveyed his people. "It's over, Mr. Maxwell."

I took a look around as well. I guess it hadn't gone too bad--all of them were dead, in exchange for two of Treize's vampires and three werewolves. All of the guys seemed relatively unharmed--just a little bloody. My eyes found Heero, still kneeling on the floor. He wasn't moving, didn't seem to even be breathing, but I knew he was alive, at least. He was staring at his hands, a blank expression on his face.

"Yeah, you're right." I clicked the safety on the Browning. "We can hope."

I turned my back on Treize, then, and walked over to Heero. He looked up when I put my hand on his shoulder, his face blank but a trace of fear deep in his eyes. "It's okay, Heero," I said, with a lot more self-assurance than I felt. "It's time to go home."

He nodded and stood, leaning against me. If you'd have told me this day would come even a couple of hours before, I'd have called you a damn liar. But I wasn't going to complain. And somehow, in a secret, dirty way, I was almost relieved that I wasn't the only one that had to deal with a sudden, unwanted,  
and world-changing... gift. 


	23. Chapter 23

Pyractomena Borealis Epilogue

All in all, we came out of the big fight a hell of a lot better than we had on our last adventure. I ended up with some stitches in my shoulder, a couple more on my wrist, and a cute little splint for my index finger. I decided that I'd have to make sure to break my middle finger next time; being able to flip people off constantly held a certain appeal. The rest of the guys were pretty much the same: Wufei and Trowa needed some stitches, Quatre had managed to crack a bone in his wrist, and Heero ended up with a couple cotton balls shoved up his nose. After the required 'You boys shouldn't fight' lecture, we escaped back to the school.

Heero didn't want to talk much, and we didn't push him. He spent a lot of time staring blankly off into space before finally admitting that he'd felt a little funny for the past couple of weeks, but hadn't wanted to say anything. He'd been as surprised as the rest of us with what happened. Case closed. We called it good and let it be. Heero, determined to have better control over his weird power than I have over mine, has been practicing setting different things on fire. It's almost possible to see the little wheels in his head turning as he figures out what kind of applications his abilities could have on a mission.

Treize and Johannes left us alone, pretty much. As far as I knew, they were still feuding, but they were the most gentlemanly vampires I'd ever met, and they seemed determined not to drag us back into it. I was fine with that. Every now and then, when I was in Shinjuku, I'd see Tony. He'd always wave to me, and I'd always wave back. Who would have thought that a registered member of the goon squad would turn out to be a knight in furry armor. One with really, really big teeth.

We got new marching orders from the mads. They were nice enough to give us nearly a month of warning, at least. Wufei and I would be staying in Tokyo, Heero was to move to Nagoya, and Trowa and Quatre were to head off to Kyoto. We weren't too thrilled at the idea of being separated, but we didn't have much choice. War waits for no man, after all. Besides, we still had a whole month to party like it was going out of style.

And me? I went back to having nightmares, this time about the lady with the silver streaks in her hair. Yeah, the one that got killed because she'd tried to protect Trowa and I. I didn't get much sleep, but I was surviving, and that's how things stayed for a while.

Then one night...

"Duo!"

Someone shook me, tearing me from the dream I'd been having. Not that I had a problem with it; I knew the dream all too well. Even after weeks of watching the woman fall, mixed sickly with images of Father Maxwell and Sister Helen, the dreams still hadn't lost their effect. I felt guilty and heavy with sin; she'd died because she'd been stupid and noble and tried to protect us.

"Duo!"

"Yeah, what?" I pulled myself into full consciousness. Concerned, sharp blue eyes were peering down at me. Heero. "What d'ya want, man?" I briefly considered shoving him away, but decided against it. Relations between the two of us were still a bit strained, though I had apologized to him. I didn't want to make things worse.

"You were having that dream again, weren't you." He didn't make it a question.

"What, the one where I'm giving a speech in front of the student body, then realize I'm naked?" I tried to grin, but a sharp look from him killed that idea. "Yeah, I am," I admitted.

Heero shook his head. "You told me the story. It wasn't your fault. She chose to step between you."

"Yeah, but if I hadn't been there, she'd still be alive."

"You don't know that. She could have gotten hit by a car the next day."

"But that's still better than dying with your throat ripped out." I shook my head. "And you don't know that either, Heero. Stalemate."

Heero sat back, causing the mattress between us to let out a metallic groan that sounded way too loud in the stillness of the room. "I think," he said slowly, "that if she were the kind of person to protect those she did not know, she would also be the kind of person that wouldn't want you to blame yourself."

"I wish I could believe that like you do." I put my head in my hands. "It'd be nice to start sleeping again."

"You can always ask her," Heero said quietly.

I felt like someone had hit me in the back of the head with a two-by-four. The idea had never even occurred to me. "But where...?"

Heero treated me to a full-blown smirk. "I know where to find things out."

An hour later found us in a moonlit cemetery. I've always thought that cemeteries are beautiful by night; they're very peaceful. As soon as I stepped onto the gravel path, flares of white, ethereal energy rose from a few of the graves. Ghosts, shaken into wakefulness by my presence. They were beautiful as well, with the moonlight shining down on them.

"Where will she be, Heero?"

"If the map I studied is correct, she should be in the southeast corner. That's where bodies waiting to be cremated go."

We walked down the silent path, not even disturbing the gravel. It wouldn't have been right to disturb the peace of this time of night. At the building, I picked the lock and we slipped inside. The wall was covered with metal cabinets, like the ones you'd see in a morgue. Wouldn't do to have your loved ones ripen before you had a chance to say goodbye.

"What was her name, Heero?" I asked.

"Mimeyo Sakura," he whispered back.

Heero ended up finding her cabinet--he read kanji better than I did. We opened the cabinet and pulled the drawer out. She was naked, but had a sheet over her, for decency's sake, I guessed. The gash in her throat had been sewn up neatly, and her makeup had been removed. They'd even gone to the trouble of dyeing her hair so that it was completely black. In death, she looked peaceful, but still determined, and I could almost imagine that there was kindness in the lines of her face.

I couldn't pace a circle around her, so I had to improvise. I'd stolen a salt shaker from a McDonald's a couple days earlier, and I used the salt to make the circle. "In this circle, I call to thee," I whispered. A pinch of dirt from the cemetery got dabbed on each of her eyelids, and over her heart. I put the same marks on myself. "With earth, I bind thee to thy body." Once satisfied with the placement, I pulled my pocket knife out and slashed my palm open so that I could add drops of blood to the dirt. "And with my blood, be born as my child."

My fingers were shaking as I wiped a small portion of blood across her lips. "Take my gift and live again." I could feel energy draining from me, into her, as I made myself into a net that would hold her essence together and bring her coherence. "Open thy eyes, Mimeyo Sakura." I tried to imbue everything I knew of her into my last two words, coaxing the echo of her soul into waking.

I'd always known that names held power, which was why I had named myself. I never realized that they could contain the entire being of a person until now, though.

Sakura's eyes fluttered open, and she licked her lips, wiping them clean of the blood. I held my still bleeding hand out to her, and she took it, drinking my blood eagerly. She was done in just a few moments, though. She'd been dead for only a couple of days, so didn't need much of a kick start.

"Where am I?" she asked, sitting up quickly. The sheet slipped from her chest, revealing her small breasts. I looked away politely. Hey, even the dead have feelings.

"You're in holding facility, awaiting your turn to be cremated," I said, finally. Honesty seemed like the best policy.

"But I'm not..." She clutched at her throat, her fingers finding the stitches. "How..."

I covered her hand with mine. Her skin felt like cold wax. "I brought you back, for just a little while, because we have business that must be finished between us."

Her eyes widened as she looked at me. "You...and that other boy..."

I nodded. "You tried to protect us from a monster, and were killed because of it." I choked up for a moment with unwept tears. My eyes stung. "I'm...I need to say...I'm sorry." I could feel the tears escaping at last. I didn't care.

She reached out and brushed my tears away with cold finger tips. "You shouldn't apologize to me," she said. "What I did was what I did."

"You died," I said, shaking my head.

"I died how I would have wanted to, then." She smiled at me with serenity only the dead could ever hope to achieve. "So few people have control over their own death. I at least died doing something I believed in, it would seem."

"But..."

"No. No 'buts,'" she said, voice firm. "Refusing a gift is very rude."

That earned her a watery chuckle. "Lady, I wish I had gotten to know you in life." I reached out a hand and gently pushed her back down.

"If we're lucky, you'll have that chance in the next," she said.

"I'm not a good enough person, but you've given me something I can strive for." I smiled. "Thank you. Thank you a thousand times over." I pulled the salt shaker out of my pocket again and sprinkled a bit on her shoulders and over her heart. "With salt, thy bindings are broken," I said. Her eyes fluttered shut. "Rest, Sakura, and dream of a time when we'll meet again."

I didn't so much feel her leave as notice a sudden emptiness in myself. It didn't hurt, too badly. I felt as if I'd just been absolved of all my sins. Well, maybe not all of them, but one of the biggies, at least. Heero and I slid her back into the cabinet, not bothering to clean her up. What the hell, it'd make the morticians wonder.

Only then did I look at Heero. No words needed, he stepped forward and gathered me into his arms. With my face pressed against his shoulder, I truly cried, letting myself be forgiven for a sin I'd been carrying for almost ten years. 


End file.
